Kissing the Lipless
by Let Love In
Summary: After receiving news that her grandpa Robert has died, Helga learns that he left her his house in Hilwood. She moves back only to find that her repressed memories are waiting for her. T for language and mature situations.
1. Grandpa Robert

**A/N: Hey y'all, new story year. Now, before you say anything, I can promise you that it won't affect my other story, Cannonball! It was just an idea I have had for a long time that I wanted to write down before it was lost completely in the garbage can of my mind. Anyway! This is a little more on the serious side, but not gravely angsty. And I'm sorry this chapter is short, but hey! What else do you expect? It's just a prologue ! Anyway, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Hey Arnold! and I don't own the title (Kissing the Lipless belongs to The Shins, I used it because the lyrics fit)**

_-- "Kissing the lipless, who bleed all the sweetness away" --_

Helga G. Patacki was sitting in front of the TV, legs wide and propped on the coffee table, when the phone rang. She felt her eyes droop a little more as she stared at the phone, wishing that it would dislodge from its charger and float over to the couch. She was exhausted; she had stayed up all of the night before working on her newest novel. All she wanted to do was relax for a little bit.

But the phone had other plans. After it went to voicemail, the culprit on the other line began calling once again. Helga closed her eyes briefly, and then hauled herself off of the couch, with a little trouble. She muttered to herself about how she never got some peace and quiet.

"Hello?" she answered impolitely, hoping that it was someone she wouldn't mind hanging up on.

"Helga?" came her mother's shaky, frail voice. Helga sighed.

"Yes?"

"I have some bad news, honey," her mother replied, sounding more vulnerable than usual.

"What is it?" Helga demanded, still impatient. Bad news seemed to be the only thing that came from her mother these days, but it was usually never something that concerned Helga.

"Grandpa Robert died," she whispered. Helga could practically envision her mother's tears dripping onto the phone as she struggled to gain composure. She gasped and sputtered for a moment before continuing. "Last night, he went into cardiac arrest, but by the time they found him, it was too late."

Sure, Helga would have liked to feel sentimental about this. It would have even been nice if she could choke up a few sappy words about the guy, but truth was, he was kind of a dick. A jerk, an ass, a loser, whatever the terminology, Helga just didn't like him. Like her father, he was loud and boisterous and cared only for his money and his power. But for some reason, he took a liking to Helga's sass.

"Oh," she said. She felt awkward. What do you say when a grandparent you don't particularly care for dies? She thought for a few moments, and finally came up with: "I'm sorry?"

Her mother didn't say anything for a while, although Helga heard her shaky breathing on the other side. Such a sap, her mother. For the record, Helga was positive that Miriam hated grandpa Robert as much as the rest of the family did.

"Anyway, I have some other news as well," her mother continued, sounding more confident. "He left you his house here in Hilwood."

"_What_?" Helga asked incredulously. She was positive that her ears deceived her; why would he leave her anything? "Miriam, don't joke with me."

"What makes you think I am?" she asked in a grave tone.

"Why wouldn't he give you that house? Why me?" she asked, not sure why she was complaining. From what she remembered as a kid, that house was gorgeous. Three stories, right in the middle of a "Stepford Wives" sort of neighborhood. It wasn't exactly Helga's style, but neither was this shitty, rundown apartment in the middle of Ghetto Town USA.

"He gave Bob the remainder of his money," her mother said in a guilty-pleasure sort of tone. "And figured that it was only fair to give you the house. Bob was his only child, and it would have gone to Olga but, well… you know how he feels about her."

Helga snorted. There was no doubt about grandpa Robert's feelings towards Olga. He thought she was a nutcase.

"Heh," Helga replied, still not sure what to say. Hilwood? She hadn't returned since she moved to the west coast at eighteen for college. She could just picture it now, with its picture perfect families and just-right atmosphere. The trees and grass were always so green that they looked fake, and the sun never stopped shining, even when it rained. She frowned. Her childhood shrouded her mind as her mother continued talking.

"I know it's a big decision but just think about it for now, okay?" her mother persisted.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I have to go now, bye," she said hastily before hanging up the phone.

She tossed herself back onto the couch, but this time she had no intention on finishing her TV show. She thought of her first day of preschool, her first bike ride down the stretch of endless road, and the day she graduated. Sure, she hated it all when she was there, but now…? It was a nice place to raise a family, she supposed.

And then she snorted to herself. A family? She didn't even have a boyfriend, or anything close to it. She sighed. Too many thoughts raced through her mind, and it caused her head to spin. So instead of making a decision, she got up and went to raid the fridge.

She pulled out a coke, along with a takeout container filled with Chinese food. But before she could sit back down on the couch and chow down, she took a look around her apartment.

It was disgusting, to say the least. There were articles of clothing everywhere; it almost looked like the couch cushioning was meant to look like a bunch of plaid shirts and denim jeans. Her coffee table had numerous circular stains on it from the lack of coasters, and her carpet was multicolored due to all of the spilled liquids.

Her room was a different story. The desk was practically falling apart due to over-aggressive writer's block (she liked to hit things when she couldn't think), and the bed looked as uncomfortable as a prison cell cot.

It's not that the apartment was unpleasant, though. If Helga had the time and interest to embellish it, it would look rather nice. But it wasn't like she ever had guests over to marvel at her interior decorating.

Setting down her cold noodles, she walked to her room and sat down at the desk, hoping that maybe this sudden stress would give her a spark of genius.

It didn't. Instead, she sat at her computer and imagined her old house in Hilwood. Her room had been pink with dolls and unicorns adorning every wall, even when she so desperately hated all of those things. And then she laughed as she remembered her closet with the shrine. What was his name again? Adam? She didn't care.

Aimlessly, she opened up her documents and sifted through some old short stories she had forgotten about. There was one about a summer vineyard, another about a failing marriage. She laughed at these. Helga had always been what she liked to call an "impulsive writer". If something came to mind, she typed it up, but when she looked at it later it was usually garbage.

Another one about a firefighter, and then one about a farmer. And there was one that was only a sentence long that said, "I wish I understood the logic behind rejecting those who love us."

She snorted. Maybe she did need a change of scenery.

Instead of calling her mother back right away, she decided to sleep on it. After all, she was pretty delirious after the many restless nights on her computer, suffering from a writer's block that couldn't be quenched. Sleep found her within minutes.

Unfortunately, she was still undecided the next morning. She woke with a headache; a throbbing in her temple as if her mind knew that she had a choice to make. She cursed her endless thoughts.

Without thinking, she picked up her cell phone. She was about to do something she knew she would probably regret, but she didn't care. Her thoughts were eating away at her by this time, and all she wanted to do was make up her mind.

She decided to call Phoebe.

They hadn't talked since Helga's first book was published. Needless to say, by the looks of her apartment, it wasn't a hit (and neither was the second, or third). But Phoebe found her new number and called excitedly; they recounted the years that they lost in between high school and then. Since then, they hadn't spoken.

"Hello?" Phoebe answered.

"Hey Phoebe, how have you been? It's Helga," she greeted, trying her best to sound casual. There was silence, and then a disgruntled murmur.

"I've been fine," she replied simply. Helga waited a few moments to see if she would say anything else. When she didn't, Helga said,

"Well, that's good. Hey, listen, do you still live in Hilwood?"

"Yes, why?" Phoebe asked, clearly a little annoyed. Helga resisted the urge to sigh.

"Do you remember my grandpa Robert's house? The one we went to for that one weekend when both our parents were out of town?"

Silence again. It was like pulling teeth trying to get Phoebe to say more than three words.

"Vaguely," she stated, as if she was bored.

"Well, he died yesterday, and apparently he left me with his house," Helga said all too quickly. The way she worded it sounded so insensitive, but she didn't really care. It didn't seem like Phoebe was interested, anyway.

"Oh?"

"Yeah. And I'm trying to decide whether or not I should."

The air was still. Then, there was more hushed murmuring, before Phoebe cleared her throat obnoxiously.

"What would you like me to say?" she asked rather rudely.

"I, well, I don't know. You remember how it was in the old days; I had a problem and you'd help me out… I know we haven't talked in a while, but I'm desperate," Helga muttered, feeling wholly pathetic. It was obvious that her old best friend didn't understand, nor did she care.

"Well, Helga, I don't really know how to help you. Think for yourself… I'll see you when I see you. Maybe that will be soon."

And then she hung up. And Helga threw her cell phone to the ground. Running her hands through her frazzled, blonde hair, she gave out a grunt of exasperation. _Think for yourself_… the words echoed in her crammed mind.

"Screw it," she whispered to herself. And then she picked up her cracked cell phone to call her mom, and tell her that she was coming home.

**A/N: I hope you enjoyed! I know it's a slow start. Let me know what you think!**


	2. Gerald Field

**A/N: Thank you all for your positive reviews! I'm glad you're all interested in this story. Anyway, here's chapter two. It's not too exciting, but it's getting there, don't worry!**

Two weeks later, Helga locked her apartment door for the last time. And she gave a short sigh, not from grief, but from resignation. It felt nice. Without looking back, she rolled her giant suitcase of clothes into the parking lot, shivering as she did so. A light breeze enveloped her as she looked up at the clouds. They looked dreary, as if the town was sad to see her go (she snorted at that notion). Regardless, she felt obliged to bid farewell to the giant, gray umbrella, for she probably wouldn't see much more of it. A clap of thunder roared back at her.

She hopped into the taxi waiting for her at the curb and directed him to the airport apprehensively. What if she made the wrong decision? She doubted she would be able to come back to that dismal apartment she knew so well.

The ride to the airport was strange. A mere twenty minutes away, she felt she only had a smidgen of time to gather all of the images into her memory. And after that, the last she would see of this town was the tops of houses and buildings as she soared higher and farther away from it. She stared out the window the whole time.

Dead trees flew by her eyes, along with rundown motels, and an abandoned preschool that teenagers used for God-knows-what. After that was a vast stretch of dying plant life and dirt.

When she arrived at the airport, she didn't feel any different. No epiphany came to her, she was still ready to leave and ready for a change of scenery.

She checked in her things and sat in the terminal, looking at an old _People_ magazine that someone had left on the chair. Time passed rather slowly while she crossed and uncrossed her legs fitfully. Finally, a voice came on over the intercom that announced the departure of her flight. She stood on wobbly knees and shoved the magazine carelessly into her carryon.

The narrow corridor to the plane seemed long and winding. She had always hated that stuffy, gusty sound that was closely associated with planes, and it was practically driving her insane. Finally, she found her seat and stuffed her fingers into her ears to drown out the banter.

She closed her eyes and imagined that she was in her grandfather Robert's house. Already, she felt out of place. The place was pretty big, and it wasn't like she had a family to fill it with. Just her. She hardly noticed when someone sat next to her.

It was a woman, and her two-year-old child. Helga almost slipped up with a groan, but suppressed it as much as she could. The child stared intensely at her from his mother's lap; his tiny hands gripped the hem of her dress. Helga smiled a bit (but it probably looked like a grimace) and glanced the other way, ready to scream. The woman next to her bounced the kid on her knee, and he giggled.

Helga despised kids. Heatedly, she pulled down the window shade and rested her head against the hard wall beside her. The flight was going to be long.

And it was. She felt like everyone on that plane was doing everything they could to keep her awake. The kid next to her kept grabbing at her blonde hair while the mother apologized profusely (Helga merely grunted; why should she be nice anyway?), the movie playing had the middle-age, balding man behind her shrieking with laughter, and of course, the sounds of an overweight woman vomiting kept her awake and alert. Longest six hours of her life.

She finally left the plane, making a beeline towards the luggage carousel so she could find her belongings and get out of there. The stale air of the airport was making her gag. After about twenty minutes of waiting for her belongings, she was out the door, standing in the winter air while taxis zoomed by her meager, waving hand. One eventually stopped for her; she shoved her things into the trunk and sat in the back to avoid awkward conversation with the driver.

"Where you goin'?" he asked in a gruff, unfriendly tone. She shoved a paper in his direction with the address on it. He zoomed off without a word.

The drive was very different from her drive that morning. When they got past the airport and the surrounding traffic, it was actually quite beautiful. It was just about five o'clock, and the sun was halfway set; just a small sliver of light was left. The sky was a wine color and the trees surrounding looked almost as if they were painted there. Even in the winter, this town was beautiful.

The taxi eventually made its way into Hilwood, a more city-living sort of town. Buildings were stacked side-by-side with little room for trees and flora in between, but it was still just as Helga remembered it. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not.

"Here," the man barked. She shoved some money in his hand and stepped out of the taxi, taking just a few moments to gather her things. A strange pressure filled her chest as she stared up at her new home. The taxi driver left without her even noticing.

Her sandals clacked against the pavement of the front porch as she climbed the stairs.

_Here it goes_, she thought to herself. _Now or never_.

She pushed open the door. The smell was overwhelming; it crashed over her like a violent wave. It wasn't a _bad _smell, per say. Just… unique. Musty, one might think.

Dropping her things to the ground, she did what she told herself not to do: she ran from room to room, taking in every detail. At first, she wanted it all to be a surprise. She wanted it to take weeks, maybe even more than that, to finally know her house. Like it was a new acquaintance. Instead, she eagerly searched each room.

The kitchen was very old-fashioned, with wood-paneled flooring and linoleum counters. A window sat above the sink, it reminded Helga of some sort of setting-out-the-pie-to-cool window. The curtains were even floral.

The rest of the rooms were dusty, to say the least. They were nice, of course, but everything just seemed so old; it was as if someone hadn't lived there in years instead of weeks.

And even though the house was full of furniture, it still felt empty. After her speedy, frantic tour, she took a second to actually look at everything. The couch was worn, probably from children and grandchildren jumping on it when their parents told them not to. And the fireplace had seen a great deal of s'mores and bedtime stories. Helga sighed at the fact that she wouldn't be continuing that chain of happy families.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a polite knock on the door. Clearly confused, she opened the door slowly, almost expecting someone like her mother, or maybe even Phoebe to be there. Instead, it was a woman and a man she had never seen before. They wore shorts, tank tops, and sweatbands galore along with a pair of cheesy, welcome-to-the-neighborhood smiles.

"Hi!" exclaimed the woman, all too enthusiastically. Helga managed to smile back as they both simultaneously stuck their hands out, and then laughed as though what they had just done was absurd. Their laughs were exactly the same.

"I'm Charles, Charles Schmidt," the man said while still chuckling. His voice resembled a newscaster's. "And this is my wife, Shannon."

She waved goofily. Again, Helga could only smile while wondering what she did to deserve these tortuous people at her door.

"We live next door!" Shannon said happily. "We were just on a little run when we saw you. You must be a relative of Mr. Patacki, hm?"

"Yeah, um, his granddaughter, actually," Helga replied sheepishly. Both Shannon and Charles cocked their heads to the side and frowned a little.

"We're sorry for your loss. He was a great man," Charles muttered slowly, as if he was not used to lying. Helga wanted to laugh, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded and looked away.

"Well, if you need anything, we're right next door!" Shannon said happily once again, to break the tension.

"Thanks," Helga mumbled, and shut the front door. She wasn't exactly thrilled about her new neighbors, but it was better than the old ones, who left beer cans and cigarettes near her front door. But she just didn't feel like dealing with anyone right now; instead, she looked out the window. She vaguely remembered the street… but she couldn't quite pinpoint what was familiar about it.

Hesitantly, she left her house. She half expected to be ambushed again by her overly excitable neighbors, but sighed in contentment when she wasn't. She peered to her left, down the long, never-ending stretch of road. _Gerald Field_, she thought to herself. And then she chortled; how did she remember that?

Helga walked about a block, and stopped suddenly. There it was. The field was overgrown with frost-dusted grass; vines had begun to creep up the walls of the buildings surrounding the field. Helga took a step onto the field and looked down to see the white lines of the baseball field were barely visible. The plates were covered in dirt and thick blades of grass, but they were there.

Again, Helga laughed. The faded white lines were like the faded memories in her mind; she remembered the place, she remembered the time… everything else was smeared throughout her remembrance.

She heard footsteps, and quickly she left the field and walked "home" as if nothing had ever happened.

Merely days later, the funeral was held at a local cemetery. Helga felt awkward walking through the gate to the grassy knoll of tombstones in her too-short dress and wobbly heels. She kept gulping and telling herself not to worry. Sure, she barely knew the guy and was now living in his house. And sure, she hadn't seen her parents in five years, but this shouldn't be too bad… should it?

There was no physical contact exchanged between Helga and her parents. Her mother smiled when she saw her, while her father nodded his head curtly; she wouldn't have liked it any other way. And then they stood silently as the priest said a few words. Helga looked around to see her neighbors, who waved weakly. She pretended not to notice them; instead she pulled at the hem of her dress and tried to concentrate on the five-dollar words being spoken.

After just a few moments, the casket was lowered. Her mother and father stared down into the rectangular hole and tried to muster up some emotion. Helga stood back and watched.

"How's the house?" Miriam asked later, as they walked away from the mourning and reminiscing. Helga shrugged her shoulders.

"It's nice… kind of dusty," she mumbled as her heels clacked against the pavement. Her mother nodded knowingly while her father looked in a separate direction. "Where's Olga?"

"Out of town," Bob grunted.

"Yes, some sort of camping trip with Malcolm. She claimed that they wanted the 'full wilderness experience', so she doesn't have a phone. We'll tell her when she comes home," her mother explained. Helga nodded and remained silent. She didn't know it would be so weird between her and her parents… but it was only sensible.

She hadn't directly talked to her father since she moved out. The last straw might have been broken when he made her walk home from her own poetry reading in downtown Hilwood because he "didn't like her tone". Or maybe it was broken at her graduation, when he got drunk and threw up all over the bleachers when her name was called. One couldn't be too sure what caused this yearlong cold shoulder, but Helga wasn't ready to forgive.

Anticlimactic as it was, Helga said goodbye and went home without another thought. The only thing she could think of was her sudden spark for a new beginning to a novel.

Weeks passed. Helga only left her house to get groceries and the occasional fast food dinner, and even then she would only be gone for less than a half hour. And that's exactly what she was doing at five o'clock on that Sunday afternoon. Idly, she pushed her shopping cart through the frozen pizza aisle. She needed some sort of variety, something new…

"Um," someone said from behind her. She turned her head and stared at Phoebe looking right back at her. Her bespectacled eyes were large and tender, and her mouth moved oddly as she tried to form words. "Helga?"

Helga stared at her old friend, bewildered. She looked about the same, but there was something off about her… it was like she was hiding a load of chaos behind those huge eyes.

"It's… been a while," Helga said, not sure of what else to say. Phoebe nodded; Helga couldn't tell if the look on her face was excited or upset.

"I didn't know you moved back," she said quietly, her sunken cheeks drooping with each word.

"Yeah, a few weeks ago actually," Helga replied quietly, suddenly feeling bad that she didn't mention anything. But Phoebe didn't seem fazed, instead she looked down at the ground and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Oh –"

Helga looked at what was in Phoebe's shopping cart: a baby carrier. Helga wasn't sure if she should smile or not.

"Oh, I'm just returning this. Uh, for a friend," Phoebe said, placing her body in front of the cart as if to shield Helga from its contents. The blonde shrugged.

"Well hey… I guess I should go. Would you mind if I called you sometime?" Helga asked out of the blue, suddenly needy for human interaction. Now it was Phoebe's turn to shrug.

"Sure, I'll see you."

And she dragged her feet off in a separate direction, leaving Helga in the middle of the aisle, wondering what the hell happened to her old friend.

**A/N: Let me know what you thought!**


	3. Pink Books

**A/N: Special thanks to everyone who has reviewed for this story! I'm very grateful for your creative criticism and compliments! I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and I'm sorry if it isn't making too much sense.**

_Stella sighed, taking a peek at her watch every few seconds. It was six thirty now, and her legs were beginning to ache with each passing moment. The heels she wore suddenly seemed ridiculous, like she was a child in her mother's shoes. It was obvious. He wasn't going to show up._

_The ring on her finger suddenly felt heavy, like it didn't belong. She slipped it off and stuffed it in her jacket pocket before taking one last look at her watch. Six thirty-one. She waved for a taxi and went home._

Helga took a sip of her giant Dr. Pepper and exited out of her document. The end of another chapter, meaning the beginning of writer's block, once again. In her lap was her cell phone, waiting to be dialed. Since her encounter with Phoebe, she was restless. Her phone was always close by, so if she were ready to make the call, she wouldn't have to think twice.

That moment hadn't come yet. Her old friend seemed so cold, so distant from everything. She probably didn't even want Helga to call.

But still, Helga was curious, for lack of a better word. Phoebe looked ragged; her limbs had hung carelessly at her sides. Her voice wasn't chipper and alert like it used to be, it seemed to drag on like a rhino in the mud. Throwing caution to the wind, Helga picked the phone out of her lap and dialed Phoebe's number.

It rang once, twice, three times before she finally picked up.

"Hello?" she answered. Helga's throat went dry, she felt as if she had nothing to say.

"Hey, Phoebe, it's Helga," she replied, standing from her desk chair. Being on the phone caused her to pace restlessly.

"Oh, hello," Phoebe greeted her. There was murmuring in the background, just like before. Helga wondered who was always there with her when she was on the phone. "Do you need something?"

"Um, no…" Helga trailed off, not exactly sure why she called. Gnawing on her lip uncontrollably, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "How have you been?"

"I've been fine," she retorted. "How have you been?"

Helga, clearly surprised by the sudden gentleness of her voice, replied, "Could be better, could be worse. I've just been writing a lot.

"Are you going to publish again?" Phoebe asked hopefully. Helga smiled sadly to herself.

"Possibly," she said, suddenly feeling a bit despondent. She felt as though she had so many things to tell Phoebe about her old life, and she wanted to ask so many questions about Phoebe's. But she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

"How's your new house?" Phoebe asked after a second of silence.

"Better than I expected… kind of dusty, though," she replied, remembering saying the same thing to her parents just a week ago. Phoebe laughed without humor.

"You're right by Geral- um, that vacant lot, right?" Phoebe asked; her voice had gone up an octave.

"Yeah, actually, I'm about a block away. I'm surprised you remember it," Helga said, not meaning to sound so bitter. Phoebe cleared her throat.

"I remember a lot of things, Helga," Phoebe mumbled rather ominously. There was a voice in the background, and Phoebe cleared her hoarse throat once again. "I should go now."

Helga heard the click before she could say a thing. What did she mean by that? And why did it seem so cryptic? She threw her phone forcefully on her dusty bed and closed her eyes. It was practically impossible to get Phoebe to say more than three words at a time, and when she did, it usually had Helga even more confused than before.

"I'm not dealing with this bullshit," she said to herself as she shook her head. If Phoebe was going to be like that, then Helga wasn't going to bother.

Almost instantly, her phone rang. Helga picked it up, half-expecting to see Phoebe's number on the screen, but she was surprised to see it was her mother's. After a few moments of contemplating whether or not she should answer it, she flipped open her phone.

"Hello?"

"Hi Helga, it's your mother," Miriam replied, as if Helga didn't already know. "How's the house?"

Helga frowned as she stood to pace once again. Miriam was never the one to call just to chat.

"It's fine, I'm just getting used to it… do you need something?"

Sure, she realized that sounded rude. But after her last pointless conversation, she wasn't looking for another one. It was mute for a few moments before her mother mumbled,

"Not really, I guess. Well, actually, I was wondering if you wanted to… come by the house?"

Now it was Helga's turn to be silent.

"Bob isn't home. I mean, I just thought you'd like to revisit the house you grew up in, is all," her mother continued, sounding very un-Miriam-like. Helga exhaled loudly.

"Sure, I'll be over in a bit."

She hung up before her mother could say another word. It's not that she didn't like spending time with her, but…

Actually, that was a complete lie. The sad truth was that she loved her mother, but did she like her? That was a good question. She didn't bother to dwell on those thoughts, though, for she was already out the door.

Ten minutes later, she was in front of her door. Five minutes after that, she knocked. It took a lot for her to do that, to willingly see her mother when she could barely stand speaking to her on the phone. It took even more for her to realize that she was back outside her old house.

The front porch induced a bout of déjà vu; she remembered sitting on those front steps for countless hours, head in hands. Those were usually the times when Miriam was too drunk to speak and Bob was yelling about something-or-other. Helga would just sneak out the door and wait for the commotion to cease.

"Come on in," Miriam said uncharacteristically, the ever-present glass of gin in her hand. Helga smirked. _Just like the old days_. "Are you hungry?"

"No, thanks," she mumbled as she crossed the threshold and wondered what she was doing back.

"Olga's coming home today. She doesn't know you're back," Miriam explained, standing awkwardly near the door. Helga winced. Just the thought of her older sister left a bitter taste on her tongue.

"Hrm," Helga replied, not quite sure what she should say to that. Olga had always been on her father's side of the spectrum, so she didn't exactly enjoy her "oh-so endearing" presence. She hoped she could escape before Olga returned.

"Do you want to see your room? It's still the same as it was all those years ago," her mother said, pointing towards the stairs. Helga shrugged and obliged.

The "Keep Out" sign was still stuck to her door; she entered anyway. The pink walls were blaring and bright compared to the dreary design of the rest of the house.

The phone rang. Miriam, startled, almost spilled some of her drink as she scurried down the hallway saying, "I should probably get that."

Helga closed her bedroom door behind her, feeling like a kid again. Everything was just as it had been the night she left. The bed was still unmade, there were school notebooks lying on the desk, and even a cup of water was sitting on her nightstand, collecting dust like an old artifact.

If anyone else had looked at this bedroom, it would have looked like the bedroom of a dead person; it was like her family was trying to conserve what was left of her by leaving her room exactly the way it was. Or maybe they were just lazy.

Helga dragged her feet across the floor, slowly moving her head from side to side like she was walking in an art museum. In the distance, she heard Miriam yelling at someone, most likely Bob. In spite of herself, she grinned.

Eventually, she found herself in front of her closet door. She opened it hesitantly, hoping that there wouldn't be any rats, bugs or other disgusting things living in there. Thankfully, there were only a few articles of clothing left behind, and a few boxes. She yanked one of the heavy, brown boxes out and opened it.

Pink books. Dozens of them. Obviously befuddled, she opened the first one.

_Cornflower hair, a football-shaped dome,_

_Your smile brings me to a place far from home._

_Gentle words, sweet as can be, _

_I wish you could see the girl behind me._

Helga snorted loudly. Skimming through the rest of the book, she realized that every singly poem was about cornflower-haired, football-headed boy. She threw the book behind her shoulder and picked up another one.

And another.

And another. Without thinking, she shoved a few of these books in her jacket pocket and left her room, almost colliding with Miriam.

"I think I'm going to go now," Helga mumbled. Her mother stopped and looked at Helga in confusion before sputtering,

"All right, well, I'll see you."

As Helga descended the stairs, she almost felt a pang of guilt. Probably because seeing her mother again soon was definitely not in her agenda. Not for a while, at least.

--

Another week passed, and Helga had forgotten all about the books when she became engrossed in her writing. Cups and cups of soda were falling all over her desk, along with food wrappers and notes to herself. Lately, she had taken a liking to looking out the window (it was a much better sight than her filthy desk) for inspiration.

A lot of her memory seemed to come back to her. Like the time she slapped Lila Sawyer in the face in the eighth grade, just a few feet away from Gerald Field. And the time she ran away from home; the roads had seemed endless and winding, and all the houses looked the same. That was the same night she got lost, and had to call Phoebe to pick her up.

Her stomach rumbled, interrupting her thoughts. Hastily, she shoved her hand in her pocket, but there seemed to be no cash. She then checked her purse, which was empty as well. She hadn't even noticed that she was getting poorer as the days passed.

So she went to bed hungry that night, and woke up even more hungry. There had to be a way to earn money in this town. Absentmindedly, she went about her normal morning routine of brushing her teeth and padding out to the mailbox in her slippers. She set the stack of junk mail on the coffee table before noticing her weekly magazine had arrived.

It was a local magazine that she had picked up on a few weeks ago. Well, a writer's journal, to be more exact. The short stories featured were almost an inspiration to her. And that's when it hit her.

She took a look at the address to find that it was only a few blocks from her house. Scrambling to look presentable, she threw on some tidy clothes and a bit of makeup before heading out the door. Magazine in hand, she made her way towards the local magazine headquarters, feeling more and more reckless with each step.

Surprisingly, she didn't have a hard time finding the place. It was amazing how much she remembered about Hilwood, without _actually _remembering much. Nevertheless, she pushed open the door and a burst of warm air instantly surrounded her.

"Hello, do you need something?" asked the receptionist. Helga, who hadn't noticed she was out of breath, nodded and pointed to the magazine in her hand.

"Yes, I'm here to speak to the editor about submitting a short story?" Helga sputtered. The woman smiled and pointed to the elevators in the hallway next to her desk.

"Floor three, first door on your right," she replied. Helga muttered a 'thank you' before striding towards the elevator and stepping inside.

It wasn't until the elevator doors had slid shut that she realized she had nothing to say. Somehow, she figured that, "I need money," wasn't going to impress the editor. The elevator music was the only thing that filled her mind as she descended to level three. She wanted to smack her forehead.

Mustering up some confidence, she knocked on the editor's door.

"Come in," he called; his voice was crisp and professional. She felt like a child as she pushed open the door and slid inside.

"Hi, I'm, um, here because, well…" she began nervously, trying to gather her thoughts. She grew angry with herself; she probably looked like an idiot in front of the guy. He glanced up at her from behind his glasses and smiled warmly. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I'm here because I want to submit a short story to your magazine."

At first, he looked as if he wanted to say something. But he stopped, and took off his glasses abruptly. His giant, imploring eyes seemed confused, but then he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Thoroughly bewildered, Helga awaited his response.

"Um, yes, here, fill out the paperwork," he stumbled across his words as he pulled a sheet of paper out of his desk and shoved it in her direction. Almost offended, she took the paper and the pen he offered. "It's just, uh, contact information and general things like that. We'll get a hold of you if your work catches our eye. You can sit there."

He pointed to the chair in front of his cluttered desk. Rather intimidated, Helga took a seat and scribbled down her information. The sudden change in his behavior made her uneasy. The room was mute as snowfall, and Helga had to resist the urge to cough or fidget or anything. It was one of those awkward situations where making noise would just worsen the circumstances. A few tense moments passed.

"Here, I'm finished," she said, setting the paper on his desk. He nodded thoughtfully.

"Okay, we usually have our short story writers submit their pieces on Friday, and then we'll choose from the bunch. Can you have it by then?" he asked, but he might as well have been asking the shrub over her left shoulder. It was obvious that he was looking right past her.

"Yeah, Friday is good."

"Good," he concluded, looking down at his desk. He gripped her paper in his hands, and when he caught a look at her name, he suddenly felt nauseous. His mouth grew dry and his tongue was sticky; it couldn't be her. But when he looked up to look into the face of the girl, she was gone.

**A/N: Okay, question. Would you guys totally hate me if I switched up the narration? I'm not going to change from 3rd person to 1st person, but for this next chapter, I may want to switch who the narration is centered around. Let me know if that is a totally horrible idea. Thanks and review!**


	4. The House with the Black Fence

**A/N: Hey everyone, thanks so much for your positive, uplifting reviews! I'm very happy you all like this story and I am trying very hard to make it a good one (I hope it is!) Anyway, this chapter is in a different POV, so don't be alarmed! Enjoy!**

_Helga Patacki_.

A weird sensation brewed inside him. He almost wanted to laugh, but at the same time he felt like heaving into the wastebasket at his feet. It had been years. He looked down at her scribbled handwriting and couldn't help but feel strange. More than strange, actually.

He thought she was gone forever, especially after what he did to her. He still hadn't quite forgiven himself for that, but… well, he would just have to deal with that later.

For now, he just hoped to God that she would come to submit her story on Friday. He had to verify that it was indeed her.

The rest of his workday was a guilty, thought-ridden blur. His fingernails were bloody stumps due to the chewing, a nervous habit he couldn't quite get rid of. All because of her. Maybe she had forgotten? She didn't seem too upset, but she also didn't seem to even recognize him.

Feeling helpless, he slipped on a coat and left the office, looking forward to his warm bed. Hopping into his station wagon, he decided to take the long way before going home to Clarissa. Sure, she would be mad but he just didn't give a damn anymore.

He passed by the old elementary school, P.S. 118. He liked to think that this wasn't the reason he took the long way home, but after seeing Helga after all these years… he felt it was necessary.

Slowing down drastically to a pace of five miles per hour, he stared longingly out the window at his past. He could almost see all of his old friends hanging off the monkey bars, poking fun at each other, and laughing. But that image quickly went away when he realized he was twenty-four years old. These things should no longer be a part of him.

He quickened back up to forty, and then to forty-five when he realized how angry Clarissa would be when he came home late for the fourth time in a row. She was probably just upset that she didn't have anyone to scream at while he worked his ass off at the office. But he wasn't bitter, no, not at all.

He parked his car in front of the house and pushed open the door, only to be greeted with a slew of angry words.

"Arnold, how many times do I have to tell you to _come home early_ before you actually do it?" she asked, her fists curled tightly on her hips. He wanted to laugh, as inappropriate as that was, but he kept a solid face.

"Sorry," he mumbled like he always did. It was natural reaction whenever she yelled.

"No, you aren't. Sorry means it won't be repeated. Yet you always do it again!" she exclaimed, throwing her hands wildly into the air. If he had a nickel for every time she said that…

Instead of replying, he hauled his way into the kitchen to get something to eat. She, of course, followed him.

"You just don't seem to care anymore," she mumbled, resting her back on the marble counter. But why should he? They had fought nonstop since the engagement. If this was the way he was going to be living for the rest of his life, he would probably be admitted into an insane asylum, mumbling "_sorry means it won't be repeated_" over and over again like a madman.

"See? This is what I mean. You don't even reply," Clarissa shouted as she left the kitchen. He didn't ask her where she was going, because frankly it didn't matter to him anymore. When their relationship was still blossoming, he always followed her when she stomped from the room heatedly. When they started getting serious, he wouldn't follow, but he would worry where she went. And now… well, let's just say that he hoped to hear the front door slam shut.

Instead, he heard her stomping up the stairs as if she was making some sort of point. He groaned; it was that type of groan that could only be heard from the ones who have had a truly bad day. This was his life. And tomorrow, he'd have to wake up and live it again.

Friday came all too quickly. He awoke with a stomachache burning deep in the pit of his lower belly, as if warning him of problems ahead. Nevertheless, he hauled himself out of bed and thanked the Lord that Clarissa wasn't up to pester him. He stared at her peaceful, sleeping form and wished she were like that all the time, before taking his briefcase in hand and leaving.

Again, he took the long way, hoping that it would cure his fidgets, but to no avail. Instead, he gripped the wheel anxiously and tried his best to focus on the road instead of what was to come. His secretary greeted him happily and he could barely muster up a reply as he slipped into the elevator.

It wasn't until about noon when there was a knock on the door. Immediately, he felt like someone had jabbed him in the back with a pole, for his back became very tense.

"Come in," he called shakily as he struggled to find something to do with his hands. The door opened ever so slowly, and a small, skinny man entered. He held a paper in his hands hopefully.

"Hi, I'm Peter, I'm here to submit a short story for the magazine," he replied, looking about as nervous as Arnold. Letting out a breath, he took the man's paper and bid him farewell.

The next person to come wasn't Helga. Nor was the next person.

It wasn't until thirty minutes before he was to go home that she came, looking frazzled (but not as frazzled as him). Triumphantly, she slapped the paper down on his desk.

"Sorry I'm a little bit late," she said in frustration. He shrugged.

"Happens to the best of us," he replied as nonchalantly as he could. She looked straight at him with a blank expression; no hint of recollection hid behind those eyes.

"Well, thank you Mr., um…?" she trailed off.

"Call me Arnold," he muttered seriously, looking straight into her eyes. He saw a flash of something, but then she smiled an aloof smile.

"Okay, Arnold."

She stood there for a few more moments, as if waiting for him to reply. When he didn't, she crept out the door, staring at him with a hint of wariness. As soon as the door shut, he slammed his fists down on his desk in a fit of rage. How could she not have even the slightest clue of who he was? He practically ruined her high school experience – not that he was proud of such a thing – and she stared at him as if he was any old guy on the street. It was infuriating.

So he packed his things and left the office, feeling even more defeated than ever. Restless and out of breath, he got in his car and decided not to drive home. Instead, he drove to a house he knew well, Gerald's house.

The drive brought up many thoughts in his cluttered mind. He had to know more about Helga and why she was here, but he knew Gerald had too much going on in his mind. Would it be selfish to ask? Before he could answer that question, he was outside the tall, redbrick house.

"Arnold, hey," Gerald greeted him with a weary smile. Phoebe appeared at his side, her arm gently resting on his. Arnold nodded at her. "What brings you here?"

"Just checking in," Arnold said carefully as the couple looked at each other and then back at him. Their smiles were tired.

"Come in," Phoebe whispered, moving out of the way. Arnold nodded graciously and entered the dim-lit house, feeling a sense of eeriness engulf him. The house looked as bad as the couple did, rundown like an abandoned motel. He tried not to notice the half-assembled baby crib in the corner.

"How have things… um, been?" he asked awkwardly, feeling intrusive in their meager, depressing little home. Phoebe's grip on Gerald's arm visibly tightened. Arnold could tell that she was looking right past him when she said, "Fine, just fine."

"You know, same old," Gerald added, trying to seem calm and collected. "Just trying to get through it," he said after a moment to cover up for his first sentence. Phoebe nodded and pulled down on her oversized sweatshirt.

"Good," he replied. The tension was almost suffocating. The couple looked at each other imploringly, as if they wanted to reveal more. But they kept quiet.

"How's the job?" Gerald asked after a few seconds, the amiable look returning to his wilted face.

"It's… well, it's interesting," Arnold replied, scratching the back of his neck. They both cocked their heads to the side, willing for him to go on. "I guess you can say I saw an old friend."

"Helga," Phoebe muttered without missing a beat. Shocked, Arnold nodded.

"She came in to submit a short story, and, well, there's something a bit off about her," he continued, remembering the vague look on her face. "She doesn't seem to remember me."

"How could she not?" Gerald burst out, almost laughing. "After what happened-"

"I know, I know," Arnold said, his voice pleading. "But when I said my name, she just stared at me without the slightest bit of recognition."

Phoebe remained silent, her hands tightly clasped together as if she was holding something between them. Gerald shook his head.

"I don't know what to say," he concluded, frowning slightly. Arnold nodded, trying to think of some explanation. Maybe she did recognize him, but she just didn't want to remember? There had to be some sort of mistake…

"She lives about a block south of the old field," Phoebe stated, looking down at her lap. "In that house with the black fence."

Gerald and Arnold stared at her incredulously.

"I have to go over there," he said finally, feeling suddenly very determined. Gerald shook his head.

"I don't know, do you think that's a good idea?" he inquired, giving Arnold his signature 'look'; the one that clearly said that he should think twice. Arnold ignored it.

"What is there to lose?" he asked. "Anyway, I should go… you know how Clarissa gets."

The two nodded all too knowingly as they stood to say farewell. Uncharacteristically, Arnold hugged Phoebe, enveloping his arms around her withering body. She held on tightly and she exhaled, as if unwinding herself. And then she disappeared into a separate bedroom, wiping the tears that had escaped.

"We're going to try again for the first time tonight," Gerald muttered, barely above a whisper. "She's… nervous."

Arnold nodded slightly and pursed his lips together, surprised about how open Gerald seemed to be. For weeks, he wouldn't say more than a few words about the situation. Arnold patted his shoulder kindly, and left.

It was no surprise that Clarissa was angry. It was no surprise when she threatened to leave him, and it was definitely no surprise when she stomped up to the bedroom and slammed the door, screaming obscenities. Arnold grabbed a soda from the fridge and flopped onto the couch without a care.

He stayed there for a while, thinking. About the dismal, drained looks on his friends' faces and the strain beneath their words. And about Helga and that goddamn _infuriating_ look on her face. And about whether or not Clarissa was going to leave him, and how he hoped to God she would.

Morning came. The sun bled through the blinds and soaked Arnold's body until he sweated. He stood and wobbled a bit before heading towards the kitchen to get something to eat. There was a small note on the counter.

_We need to talk._

Each word was underlined harshly. He crumpled the paper and threw it into the trashcan where most of her insufferable notes went. Not wanting to creep upstairs and experience her wrath, he simply straightened out his crinkled shirt and pants before heading for the door. But alas, there she was at the top of the stairs, as if she was just waiting for him to wake up.

"Where are you going?" she asked, and then crinkled her nose. "In last night's clothes?"

"A block south of the old field, the house with the black fence," he replied before yanking open the door and slamming it shut. He loved to push her oversensitive buttons.

Hopping into the car, he felt reckless and daring as he zoomed towards Helga's house. He arrived in just five minutes, recognizing the house exactly as it was described. The black fence creaked as he pushed it open and sauntered carefully towards the front door. He knocked three times with confidence.

He heard footsteps, but no one appeared for quite some time. He almost turned to leave, but the door finally creaked open just like the fence. An eye stared at him through the crack, and then fully opened to reveal Helga. She almost looked relieved.

"Are you here about my story?" she asked hopefully. He shook his head slowly, suddenly unsure of what to say, and unsure of why he was there in the first place.

"Uh," he said. Her eyes narrowed as she stared him up and down. "Do you… do you remember me?"

"You're the magazine editor," she said slowly, as if he was some sort of mental patient. He shook his head.

"No," he said, sounding more forceful than he would have liked. "Do you remember me? Arnold."

Looking like a deer in the headlights, her eyes were wide and her mouth hung slightly ajar. But then she shook her head. He stared deep into her eyes as if that would somehow get her to recognize him, but instead she took a step back and eased the door towards her. In turn, he took a step forward.

"Arnold, Football Head, Arnoldo, Hair Boy, anything at all?" he asked desperately. Her expression remained aloof for a moment, but there was finally a flash of reminiscence beneath her eyes.

Before either of them could say anything else, she slammed the door shut.

**A/N: I know you probably have many questions! Don't worry, they will most likely be answered within the next few chapters. I'm sorry this one was short, by the way, but I thought that was a good, semi-cliffhanger-ish way to end it. Let me know what you think!**


	5. Just Go Away

**A/N: Similar to Cannonball, I've decided to revisit this story. I remember having a great deal of grief a while back, trying to figure out where to go with this one. When I reread it, I kind of fell in love and decided I really wanted to update. I know it's rather confusing right now, and this chapter won't be any better. Forgive me if it's not up to par, I've been out of practice for quite a while! Anyway, I hope this is okay. I'm so glad I have such loyal readers. You guys rock.**

Helga didn't know what to do. The echo of the door slam still rang throughout the old house, and she wondered if Arnold was still standing there. Deciding not to care, she slid her back against the door and rested her head in on her knee. How did she not see it before? Those big, caring eyes, that sweet "cornflower" hair… she shook her head slowly. High school was never something she planned on revisiting.

Her ears perked up when she heard the sound of an engine coming to life and putt-putting away from her house. _Well_, she thought to herself. _I guess I'm not getting published in that magazine._

Sighing, she sat there for a few more moments before deciding to grab those books she had taken from her house just a few weeks before. She padded up the stairs slowly before rummaging through her already messy room, secretly hoping that they were lost somewhere. Soon enough, she finally found them stuffed in one of her coat pockets in the closet.

"This is gonna be good," she said aloud as she grabbed a book and flipped through the hundreds of love-stricken words.

Reading the first few poems, Helga was rather amused. Mostly at her impeccable vocabulary for a fourth grader, but also because she was obviously loony over this moron. But as she continued to read, she got uneasy. Angry, actually.

She fished her coat pocket for the rest of the books before she headed back downstairs and lit the fireplace. The flames twirled before her eyes, and for a moment she just sat there and stared, unsure why she was doing this. Or why she even cared. She could just find another gig at a different magazine and forget about all of this.

She threw the books in anyway.

It didn't take long for the corners of the books to curl inward and char black. Helga was mesmerized, and barely noticed when the phone rang. Tearing herself away from the spectacle, she headed for the phone and hoped to God that it wasn't her mother.

"Hello?" she barked into the phone, not intending to sound so crabby.

"Helga?" came a timid voice. It was Phoebe. What was this, high school reunion week? Helga could feel a groan coming on, but she suppressed it.

"Hey, Pheebs," she said into the phone. Almost immediately, she cleared her throat. _Pheebs_? She can't believe that just slipped out of her own mouth. Helga could hear Phoebe coughing on the other line. "Uh, how are you?"

"Fine," she replied rather shortly. She paused for a moment, causing Helga's heart to race a little faster. There obviously had to be a reason as to why Phoebe was calling, and Helga wasn't sure that she was going to like it.

"Do you need something?" Helga asked, repeating the line that Phoebe had said last time they were on the phone. She secretly hoped it stung a little.

"Listen," she began, all the hesitant qualities from her voice had completely disappeared. For a moment, she sounded like old Phoebe. Helga perked her ears. "Arnold came over last night."

Helga remained silent.

"… Can we have this conversation in person?" Phoebe asked after a few moments.

"I guess," Helga replied, her voice coming out as a tiny croak. Before she could tell her the address, the phone line went dead. She slammed the phone down with vigor, unsure as to why this was such a big deal. All she had to do was avoid that building and submit stuff to other magazines. It's not like she had to incorporate all of her old school friends back into her life.

For a while, she paced. Around the living room table at least forty times, before making a loop to the kitchen and repeating this cycle around the counter. She didn't know what she would say to Phoebe, and she wasn't even sure if she wanted to see her. Looking at her in that giant sweatshirt that engulfed her body, those low bags under her eyes… she had changed. And Helga was afraid to know why.

A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. She took her time waltzing to the door, thinking of some way to greet her old friend without being awkward.

"Hello," Phoebe said as Helga swung the door open. She settled for a handshake. It was rather awkward.

"Hey," Helga said as nonchalantly as she could. Phoebe stepped in and stayed standing next to the door, as if she didn't plan on being here long. Helga crossed her arms.

"This is a nice place," Phoebe told her, looking at the structure. She fell backwards against the wall, resting her back there. "Rather large."

"What's the problem, Phoebe?" Helga grumbled, ignoring her polite comments. What was she supposed to say to that, anyway?

"Arnold came over last night," Phoebe repeated, tucking a strand of dull black hair behind her ear. Her eyes shifted uncomfortably. "He said you stopped by his office."

"I did," Helga told her, staring her dead in the eye. Phoebe was doing everything to look away. "And he came over this afternoon, too."

"He did?" Phoebe perked up, staring widely at her. "What happened?"

Helga had no idea why this was such an interesting subject to her old friend. She shrugged. "I didn't let him in."

Phoebe's shoulders slumped even lower than they already were. With her thumb and index finger, rubbed the area below her eyes, tilting her glasses up in the process.

"In fact," Helga continued. With gusto, she added, "I shut the door on him."

"But why?" Phoebe asked, rather adamant about the subject.

"Why does it matter?" she asked. "I don't know what the big deal is!"

Phoebe grew silent. She stared down at the dusty floor, moving the tip of her toe around in a circle. Helga sighed a little.

"What happened senior year… it sucked," Phoebe said, looking rather plaintive. "But to pretend like you don't remember him? Come on."

"Phoebe," Helga muttered deliberately. The bespectacled girl looked up at her, mouth curling into a tight, horizontal line. "I wasn't pretending."

"What do you mean by that?" she asked, her tone at least an octave higher than before. Helga felt a pang in her heart as she remembered that voice, the voice of a caring friend.

"I know something happened," she informed her, biting her lower lip idly. "But… I'm not sure what that 'something' is."

* * *

Arnold was stunned. Completely stunned. One minute, he was staring at none other than Helga G. Patacki. And the next… her front door. And for some reason, all he wanted to do was knock on that door again.

Why was this such a big deal to him? He could just turn around and leave, never return, and forget all about her. Not a big deal. Isn't that what happened after graduation?

But he didn't want that. He wanted to know what was going on and he could already feel it beginning to drive him crazy. Reluctantly, he headed for his station wagon and headed back home, where he would face Clarissa once again.

But she wasn't even home. He breathed a sigh of relief as he headed for his room and hopped onto the computer. In his state of agitation, he might as well get some work done.

Of course, with the stack of papers he was given for the magazine, he flipped right to Helga's. There was no point in avoiding that, now, was there? Slipping on his reading glasses, he peered down at the paper inquisitively.

_It was summer. A time for new beginnings and fresh endings. For most students, school life as they knew it had just ended, and all they had to look forward to was sun, partying and bathing suit season. But not for her._

"_Can't you just leave me alone?"_

_The voice constantly rang in her ear. _

Arnold stopped reading. Was this some sort of joke? He scanned the paper quickly, unsure of where she was going with this.

_Did he even know she was in love with him? Since the first day they laid eyes on each other. And there he was, standing in front of the whole school. "Don't you get it?"_

He could feel himself beginning to sweat. There was something seriously wrong with this picture.

_"Just go away."_

He pressed his fingers against his eyes, rubbing them violently. Without a second thought, he set the paper aside and stood up on wobbly legs. Maybe it was time he got some fresh air.


	6. The Hilwood Review

**A/N: Every time I reread this story, I feel the need to update. I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while, this is one of my stories that I happen to have a lot of trouble with because I'm trying to keep it consistent and smooth. It's hard when it's such a far-out concept, but I hope you guys understand. Thank you so much for sticking through it with me! I'm just here to put some more pieces into place. I hope you enjoy this chapter!**

"So… what happened?" Helga asked restlessly. The conversation between her and Phoebe had taken an awkward lull that caused Helga to fidget uncomfortably. All Phoebe did was stare at her intensely as she pulled at the neck of her sweater.

"I don't think I should be the one to divulge that information," Phoebe replied cryptically. Helga could barely suppress an eye-roll. "It's just… not my place."

And with that, she was silent. Helga sighed heavily and flopped down on a dusty couch, watching as the tiny particles flew wildly into the air. Phoebe continued to stare at her, but for some reason Helga knew that she would say no more about the subject. So she decided to change it.

"Do any of our old friends still live in the area?" she asked, feeling childish. Phoebe smiled a little bit.

"Yeah, actually," she replied, her voice continuously regaining that chipper sound that Helga missed. "Sid owns that old record store on 6th street… hm, and I heard that Curly was a teacher at P.S. 118."

"Go figure," Helga snorted, which caused Phoebe to giggle rather suddenly. It was like she was waiting to let out that small laugh for years now. Eyes wide, coughed a little from embarrassment before continuing.

"Oh! And Harold owns Green Meats now… much to Mr. Green's dismay," she said as she stared into space. "And um, Gerald… well, he and I are, well, married."

Suddenly aware of that ring on her finger, Phoebe began to twirl it around in circles with her thumb.

"Wow, really? That's… well I can't say I'm surprised," Helga replied with a grin. Phoebe returned the smile, but it was not very believable. She looked down at her stomach, concealed by the sweater and she let out a hefty breath.

"Hey, I need to get going," she told Helga regretfully. She rather missed Helga's cynical presence, and Helga was just beginning to get comfortable again with her old friend. But she nodded in understanding and stood up to get the door for her. "It was nice to see you again… don't worry about all of this. You'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Helga replied with a furrowed brow. "I hope so."

And with that, she gave her a small wave before shutting the front door.

* * *

Later that night, Arnold couldn't sleep. Not in that "can't-stop-thinking" sort of way, either. He tossed and turned, not bothering that Clarissa grunted every time he created a small disturbance. But there was something that just wasn't right… he felt rather haunted by the whole situation. To be perfectly honest, Arnold had not planned on reliving that part of his life. And he was actually quite disturbed that it was upsetting him this badly.

"Will you stop moving?" Clarissa finally asked through clenched teeth. For a moment, Arnold wasn't even sure that she had said anything. Was his mind playing tricks? Her back was turned to him, and she didn't turn to face him with a scowl, like she normally would. Regardless, Arnold figured that a change of scenery could quite possibly help his insomnia. So, he hoisted a downy pillow over his shoulder, stole a blanket and headed to the couch.

But nothing changed. It's like she was standing there, staring at him, making damn sure that he not fall asleep. Angrily, he sat up blew some hair out of his face. He had to wake up in a matter of hours, and no doubt tomorrow would be harder to get through than today. Restlessly, he padded towards his computer and sat down, staring at the stack of papers that he set aside earlier that day.

He flicked on a desk light and straightened the papers, holding them tightly in his hands. As he began to read through other entries, Arnold felt distracted. The words on the paper all blended together into one big mess of clichés and five-cent plots, leaving him woefully frustrated. All he could think about was that damn story of Helga's, and how it literally was eating his mind away. Why would she _write _about that when she supposedly didn't even remember who he was?

Arnold shook his head and picked up her paper, somehow hoping that the words on the page would be different. And yet, there they were, blaring and crude and bulging outward like the words were yelling at him. He really needed to get some sleep.

Anxiously, he flopped down onto the couch again and pulled the blanket up to his chin. With much concentration, he was asleep within the hour, dreaming of strange people and places he had never seen before.

* * *

Helga awoke to the sound of her home phone ringing noisily next to her.

"Who's calling at this hour," she mumbled incoherently to herself. With a groan, she rolled over and checked the time. Oh. One in the afternoon. Trying her best to wake herself up, she clunked her hand onto the phone and held it up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Miss Pataki?" came a cool female voice. "Hi, this is Pam from The Hilwood Review."

"Oh," Helga blurted into the phone as she suppressed a yawn. "Hello."

"I'm calling to let you know that your short story has been chosen for submission this week. Congratulations!"

Helga remained silent. Maybe she was just dreaming. Letting her head fall back onto her pillow, she rubbed her eyes with her free hand.

"Miss Pataki?"

"Are you sure?" was the only thing Helga could think to ask.

"Yes, miss. You will see it in this week's edition, and the check will be mailed to your residence on 8876 E. 9th Street. Is that okay?" asked Pam. Her voice sounded like that of a computer's. You know, when you were little and would type in curse words just to hear the computer say them back to you? Yeah, that was her. Helga kind of would have liked to hear her say a cuss word. It would have sounded hilarious.

"You know," Helga replied slowly. "Is it okay if I come pick it up?"

"Of course, Miss Pataki," replied the robot. "Just bring your ID. We hope to see you sometime today. Thank you."

_Click. _Helga dropped the phone back onto the receiver before throwing her covers off her warm body and getting up. She usually didn't sleep in that late, but for some reason after everything that happened the day before, she felt she deserved it. Something inside of her was yearning to talk to Arnold. Maybe that's what Phoebe wanted her to do.

So she got dressed, ate the rest of the food that was left in her fridge (a piece of bread with the few dregs of deli meat that was left in the bag) before she left her house. The curiosity in her was enough to calm her nerves for at least a moment. But by the time she was standing in front of the large building, her stomach was rolling all over the place. So she decided to continue walking for at least a few blocks, before she would turn around and face Arnold.

She passed some old shops that she remembered going to as a child, when finally she came across a hanging sign that read "Spinning Records" in front of a small, meager building. She remembered what Phoebe said about Sid owning the place now. Wondering if he was working, she stopped in front of the window to take a quick peek.

He didn't look much different from what she remembered. His long nose still hung down his face like a deflated balloon and his eyes were wide and excited. Helga was never one to feel nostalgia over small things, but she _did _go with him to junior prom. It was just a friend thing, but he was a good guy and one of the people she felt regretful about losing touch with.

But she stopped herself from yanking the door open. This was not high school reunion week. What would she say, anyway? She had no use for old records. She didn't even have a record player.

She turned on one heel and walked back towards the headquarters for The Hilwood Review. It was now or never. She needed that check, and she needed to clear things up with the editor once and for all.

She pushed open the double doors and exhaled when the cool air hit her face. Pam was sitting at the desk, typing something on the computer. She looked up and gave Helga a perfect smile.

"How can I help you today?" she asked. She sounded slightly more like a human in person, which disappointed Helga.

"Hi, I'm Helga Pataki… I'm here to pick up my check for the magazine? And, um… I needed to speak with the editor." she replied awkwardly. Pam's smile did not falter.

"Okay," she said while she fished through some papers on her desk. "I just need to make a quick trip to the safe. Give me a moment."

Helga sat down on a rustic chair in the lobby and crossed her legs uncomfortably. The tinkling music coming from the speakers was annoying and dull and it kept repeating itself over and over again. She picked at her nails as she waited, not feeling any remorse for leaving her nail clippings on the white tile. Pam returned with an envelope, the smile still plastered on her face. Helga wondered if she kept it on the whole time she was in the back room.

"Here you go, Miss Pataki. I believe that the editor is busy for the time being, but if you would wait just a few minutes I'll let Mr-" The phone on her desk rang. "Oh! I need to get this. Hold on a moment."

Helga took her check and sat back down, listening as Pam spoke to person on the other line. She clacked at the computer as she spoke, nodding and 'mmhmm'ing every few moments. Helga tapped her fingers uncomfortably on her knee. Maybe she should just come back another time.

Restlessly, she stood up and folded the envelope into her purse. She needed to go deposit the check before she forgot, anyway, and the sudden creative spark inside her mind needed to get out into writing before it disappeared. Behind her, she heard the elevator open and a tall, brusque-looking man stepped out and headed for the door.

"Miss Pataki?" said Pam quietly. Helga turned around as the man hit her shoulder on the way out of the building. Pam's hand was on the mouthpiece of the phone as she spoke again, "I believe the editor is ready, if you'd like to see him. Floor three."

Mustering up some courage, she thanked the receptionist before heading to the elevator and catching it right before it closed. As it shakily departed, Helga thought of the millions of things she was going to say. But as she left the elevator and stood right in front of his door, she was at a loss for words. Regardless, she opened the door slowly and stepped inside. Arnold simply stared at her, first with a look of shock, and then with slight anger.

"What are you doing here?" he asked her in a small voice. She scratched the side of her arm.

"Why did you publish my story?" she asked suddenly. Her voice sounded strange coming out of her own mouth, almost as if she was scared to know the answer. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and index finger, not looking at her directly.

"It was interesting to me," he said, clearly strained. "You seem to barely have any recollection of me, yet you write about senior year as if you've been reliving it for years… it makes no sense."

Helga squinted at him. "I don't know what you mean."

"That piece of dialogue that you had… right in the beginning of the story. How can you tell me you can't remember that, when it's almost the exact conversation that we had?"

Helga wiggled her fingers uncomfortably, just to make sure that she was actually here, in his office, hearing these words come out of his mouth. Her lips quivered as she opened them to speak, but nothing came out. She knew that dialogue from somewhere. It was a recurring dream of hers.

"That was…" she started. "That was you? That _was _you!"

"Oh, come on," he replied incredulously, now looking her straight in the eye. "Stop _pretending_! I know what I did was wrong, but seriously? How could you forget?"

"I don't know!" she retorted rather angrily now. Had everything in her dream been a real memory? Clenching her fists at her side, she said, "Listen bucko, I came here to ask you about what happened, but now that I think I have an idea… I think I should go."

Kind of embarrassed about her use of the word 'bucko' while trying to tell him off, she turned around and yanked open the door.

"Helga, wait," he called. But she didn't want to stop. If all that was true… she felt sick as she slammed his office door shut. Walking quickly down the hallway, she found a door to the bathroom and she yanked it open. The door had barely clicked shut by the time she was kneeling over the toilet, throwing up her lunch.

**A/N: Let me know what you think!**


	7. Crescent Shaped Scar

**A/N: I've been getting several reviews that have asked me the meaning of the title of this fanfic. I think I mentioned in the first chapter that it is a song by The Shins (one of my favorite bands!) in which the lyrics kind of go together with the story. Here's a snippet:**

"…And your sheets  
Were growing grass  
All on the corners of your bed

But you've got too much to wear  
On your sleeves  
It has too much to do with me  
And secretly  
I want to bury in the yard  
The gray remains of a friendship scarred

You told us of your new life there  
You got someone coming round  
Gluing tinsel to your crown  
He's got you talkin' pretty loud

You berate remember  
Your ailing heart and your criminal eyes  
You say you're still in love  
If it's true, what can be done?  
It's hard to leave all these moments behind"

**I don't know if that helps any. To me it just … fits. Anyway, thanks for all the reviews guys! I'm so happy that you're enjoying this story as much as I'm enjoying writing it.**

Arnold headed to his car early than usual, telling his receptionist Pam to cancel his end of the day meeting. His head was spinning off its hook and all he wanted to do was talk to Gerald about it. He hopped into his station wagon and slammed the door shut, feeling this nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach as he started the car. Taking the fastest route, he cranked up the radio in his car just to drown out the conversation they had.

By the time he got to their modest house, his hands were sore and strained from gripping the wheel tightly. What was it about her that made him so… stressed out? And the fact that she stressed him out made him feel lengthened and thin, like he could barely spend time doing anything else but thinking about her.

Warily, Arnold knocked on the front door and waited a moment before Gerald opened it.

"Hey man," Gerald said, giving his friend a warm smile. With every next visit, Arnold could tell that Gerald was regaining his strength. His smile wasn't something that had to be pulled out from within, it seemed like it rather belonged there and that made Arnold give his friend an even bigger grin as he let him inside. "What's going on?"

"Helga came to the office," Arnold said immediately as he shed his coat. Phoebe arrived shortly after Arnold sat down on their dusty couch, looking as though she just woke up from a long nap. Gerald sat across from him and stared intensely, telling him to go on. Arnold sighed, "Did I tell you that she submitted a story?"

"Oh," Gerald replied, looking at Phoebe. She pulled down on her sweater sleeves.

"Yeah… she wrote about that summer," Arnold told them gravely as he placed his ankle on his knee and shook it restlessly. Phoebe's eyes were wide, and again she exchanged glances with her husband. Arnold was silent for a few moments, allowing them to soak in that information. "So I published it, and she came to my office."

Again, he took a few seconds of silence to look around their apartment. The half-assembled baby crib was gone from its place in the corner, but the box was still peeking out from the other side of the couch. He wondered why they didn't put it in a closet or something, somewhere they couldn't be reminded.

"Well?" Phoebe asked suddenly. Gerald and Arnold gave her baffled looks as if wondering what language she was speaking, but she continued to stare at Arnold with intensity. Phoebe had grown so quiet since everything had happened, and even the slightest bit of enthusiasm from her was a bit of a shock.

"Well," Arnold continued. "We talked. We kind of fought, actually. I think she remembers."

Gerald snorted a little. "Isn't that kind of weird? You know, you can't just block someone out of your memory like that. Especially when she was so… obsessed" – Phoebe elbowed him in the ribs – "I mean _enamored _with you."

Arnold felt that swirling feeling in his stomach again. Phoebe gave a small cough, causing the boys to stare in her direction.

"It's actually quite possible," she said in a small voice as she looked at her toes. "People have the ability to repress their memories. You know, push them in the back of their mind until they quite literally can't recall them."

"But to forget my whole existence?" Arnold replied shakily. "Are you sure that's possible?"

"Well you remember the, um, accident she got into, don't you?" Phoebe asked, staring up from the ground to look at them. "The car accident?"

* * *

She had a crescent-shaped scar about the size of a toothpick on the back of her neck. Every once in a while she'd find herself dragging her fingertips across it, feeling where the skin was pulled tight and uneven. She never really paid much attention to how she got it, no, not as much as she paid attention to the fact that it was there and leaving an imperfect blemish on her otherwise smooth skin.

This time as she lied in her bed, Helga felt uneasy as she reached up and pulled her hair to the side to feel the scar. It was still rigid and protruding outward, but not as much as it once was. Feeling absolutely exhausted, she placed her hands back down on her lap and closed her eyes, hoping that a good night's sleep would give her a new perspective.

* * *

_It took months of planning, but she finally did it. She finally told him. Well, not so much told… she wrote him a note and left it at the front door step of the boarding house. Regardless, thirteen years of feelings had finally threatened to burst as their senior year came to a close, so she had to do something._

_Her heart fluttered uncomfortably in her chest as she and Phoebe hopped in the car and locked their seatbelts._

"_So you just… told him?" Phoebe asked as Helga exited out of the neighborhood. "Like, everything?"_

"_Pretty much," Helga replied in a voice that was supposed to be nonchalant. She fiddled with the radio as Phoebe gave a small 'hm'._

"_Like that time Holly Fenwick was his partner in bio? And you forced her to trade partners because you knew about her cheating on her boyfriend?" Phoebe asked. _

"_What do you think I am, an idiot?" Helga retorted with a snort. "Just the important stuff."_

"_Noted," said Phoebe. "Do you think that's such a good idea though?"_

"_What d'you mean?" replied Helga._

"_You _are _going to the west coast for school. And don't you leave in a few weeks?" Phoebe continued on, looking down at her lap. Helga sighed rather heavily._

"_Let's just deal with that when we get to it," she replied simply, trying to hide the uneasiness in her voice. There was no question about where she was going for college. The west coast was the only option for her right now; she had to be somewhere that was very far away from her parents, specifically Bob. Especially after his drunken episode at Helga's own graduation. Truthfully, Helga was just hoping that Arnold would throw away all of his college plans and whisk her away to the west coast where they could sip margaritas on the beach after a long day of class. A girl could dream, right? Phoebe nodded absentmindedly while pulling at the string on her bikini. "Jeez, Pheebs, stop messing with that thing."_

"_It's just a little tight," Phoebe replied. The two girls were heading to a pool party at Rhonda Wellington-Lloyd's mansion. Or, as Rhonda liked to call it, "End-Of-Summer Pool Party Extravaganza – Invite Only."_

"_You're sure he's gonna be here, right?" Helga asked impatiently, staring at Rhonda's large house that had come into view. _

"_I don't see why not," Phoebe told her as she slid her prescription sunglasses up her nose. With a guilty pleasure sort of tone, she added, "Gerald will be here."_

"_You two still haven't made sweet nerdy love to each other yet?" Helga asked, giving her friend a nudge. Phoebe turned bright pink, and they headed out of the car and up to the house, not daring to speak another word of him. A brightly lit path heading to the backyard beckoned them towards it. With butterflies flitting vigorously in her stomach, she pushed open the back gate with Phoebe right behind her. _

"_There he is," she whispered. Helga looked around frantically before finally laying her eyes upon Arnold, who was laughing at something with Gerald and Stinky. She attempted to suppress her eagerness. "Go on!"_

"_Wait, Phoebe, don't leave me. I can't go up to them alone! He's with friends," Helga said frantically as she pulled at the string of her own bikini, suddenly feeling overexposed. _

"_Don't be silly. We'll both go over there," she told her as she nudged her forward a little bit. The boys didn't seem to notice them as they got closer and closer; Helga's heart lurched with each step. Just a few feet away from them, Helga suddenly felt short of breath. Quickly, she dodged the boys and stepped through the open screen door leading into the kitchen, yanking Phoebe along with her._

"_What are you doing?" Phoebe asked in a harsh whisper. _

"_I don't know," Helga replied shakily, ignoring the people in the kitchen who were staring at her. "What do I say?"_

_Phoebe was silent for a moment; a pensive look had etched itself upon her face. Outside, the girls could hear a burst of laughter. Phoebe inched closer to the open screen door and strained to listen to the boys' conversation. Helga followed in suit._

"_Arnold, did you tell Stinky about the, uh, love note?" Gerald said with a snicker. _

"_What?" came Stinky's voice. "What love note?"_

"_It's nothing," Arnold replied to both of them, his voice low and heavy. Phoebe looked at Helga, whose expression was completely blank. _

"_It's from Helga," Gerald explained with another laugh._

"_Helga?" Stinky asked incredulously. "_Our _Helga? Gawrsh, that's a surprise. I thought she hated you."_

"_Apparently not," was all Arnold could say. There was a moment of silence, but that was broken by the sound of laughter._

"_That's rich," Stinky said between sputters and guffaws. "I think I'd rather her deck me in the face than kiss me!"_

_More laughter. Phoebe stepped away from the wall and waited for Helga to do the same, but she continued to listen._

"_What're you gonna tell her?" asked Gerald. "Careful how you word your answer… she might kill you if you tell her you hate her guts."_

_Gerald and Stinky began laughing again as they waited for Arnold's response. After a few seconds, Helga could hear Arnold laughing too. It started off rather quiet, but then escalated into a fit of snickers. Phoebe pulled at Helga's arm, but she yanked it away quickly._

"_I guess I'll just try to avoid her," Arnold said in a strange voice. "What else can I do?"_

"_Or you could become Mr. Arnold Pataki," said Stinky. "On account'a she would probably force ya to take her last name."_

"_Yeah," Arnold replied, laughing along with his friends. His voice still sounded strange, as if it didn't belong to him at all. "What a nightmare."_

_Helga felt all the nervousness and giddiness inside of her just melt away as she stood near that door. She felt no tears building up in her eyes, no anger bubbled up inside of her stomach. Nothing. The voice rang in her ears as the boys began talking about something else._

"_Helga?" whispered Phoebe, who placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. Helga did not turn around. She could barely even feel Phoebe's gentle hand on her skin. She couldn't feel a thing. "Let's go."_

"_No," she replied, unsure of how she pushed those words out of her mouth. And before she knew it, she stepped outside the kitchen and onto the patio._

_The boys stared at her with open mouths, but then they quickly shut them and covered them up with a smile. _

"_Hey Helga, how's it going?" asked Stinky, who clearly didn't put two and two together. Helga shook her head and looked at Arnold, who looked completely afraid. Without a second thought, she pushed through them and headed to the other side of the backyard, not aware that she was being followed by not only Phoebe, but Arnold as well. _

"_Helga," Phoebe called. Helga turned around, not noticing that half of the people at the party had stopped their conversations to check out what was going on. Upon seeing Arnold, she suddenly felt a burst of madness envelope her._

"_What do you want?" she asked heatedly, staring intensely at him. The people in the pool next to him all looked up in curiosity._

"_Listen, I'm sorry, I just-"_

"_Save it for someone who gives a shit," she cut him off through clenched teeth. "I'm not buying your Mother Theresa act anymore. You're obviously not as saintly as you'd like others to think."_

"_I'm not acting, I'm serious-"_

_She cut him off again, this time by shoving him. Completely caught off guard, he went reeling backwards into the pool, just barely missing a few of the pool-goers. They all began to laugh and cheer at Helga, which made her anger boil even hotter inside of her. Sputtering, Arnold resurfaced as Gerald and Sid ran over to inspect the scene. _

"_You know what? Fine, I'm not sorry," Arnold told her. "But I do feel sorry for you."_

_Everyone 'oohed' at his comment. Phoebe, looking pissed off and riled, shushed them._

"_Sorry for me?" asked Helga, losing part of the heated strain in her voice._

"_Can't you just leave me alone?" he asked her; that strange tone in his voice had come back once again. He sounded childish. "Just go away."_

_Everyone in the pool area was silent. In a huff, Arnold hoisted himself out of the pool and stormed towards the kitchen, shaking his head as he did. Helga stayed where she was, absolutely stunned. All the anger had dissipated as soon as he was out of view, but a feeling of awful emptiness engulfed the space it left. _

"_Are you okay?" Phoebe whispered as soon as everyone stopped staring. She didn't reply. Instead, she fished her keys out of her purse and left without saying a word. Phoebe could find a ride home without her._

_When she got in the car, she sat silently. She didn't want to move. Thirteen years of pining, and now here she was. Nothing felt right, this was not the way it was supposed to go and although it made her want to cry, she didn't. Instead she felt as a cold, clammy feeling crawled up her fingertips and spread to her whole body._

_She barely noticed that she was out of breath when she finally started the car and headed out onto the main road. Everything was blurry and her feet felt heavy as she pushed down on the gas. All she wanted to do was go home and go to bed._

* * *

Helga woke up with tears streaming down her face. She was glad at least that she woke up before the part where she didn't make it home, and crashed her car.

Back at Phoebe's house, Arnold was feeling sad himself. That was the last time he saw her before now, of course. That was the last time almost anyone from P.S. 118 saw her, besides Phoebe, who visited when she could. They never dared to speak about that incident. Helga didn't even tell anyone when she hopped on a plane with all of her belongings and flew across the country.

"Well, she severely injured her head when she crashed," Phoebe explained, being the only one other than Helga's parents that knew of her condition after the crash. "Which is what triggered retrograde amnesia."

"What?" asked Gerald.

"Losing pre-existing memories," Phoebe told him. Gerald stared at her in awe, as if wondering how in the world she knew all of this off the top of her head. Phoebe, unaware of this, continued. "So that, coupled with her want to repress his memory… well, you get where I'm going."

Arnold and Gerald nodded slowly. Arnold felt even more sick than he had when he first arrived. Helga _wanted _to erase him from her memory. He had no idea it was so bad.

"I think I need to go," Arnold told them in a shaky voice. Phoebe and Gerald gave him soft looks as they saw that look of dawning on his face. "Thanks for having me over, guys."

He hugged Phoebe, who disappeared into the kitchen, mumbling something about being thirsty. Gerald turned to his old friend and smiled a little bit.

"She's really something," he said to Arnold as he stared at his wife. "All this Helga stuff… I know it sucks, but she's practically her old self again… you know?"

Arnold clapped Gerald on the shoulder, glad that at least one person was benefiting from this situation. "I'm happy for you."

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," Gerald said with a short laugh. "I'll see you."

"Yeah, see you," Arnold called after him as he headed back to his car, feeling even worse than before.

**A/N: Okay, let me know what you think. I hope that now that you know what happened, you aren't disappointed or anything! I know I'm going to get some heat for Arnold being OOC or whatever… but hey, people change. I hope I got across the point that he wasn't really trying to make fun of her, but more so trying to fit in with his friends who thought it was humorous. Anyway… thanks for all your reviews guys!**


	8. Bed Bugs

**A/N: Ahhhh! I keep doing this to you guys. I'm super sorry for the lateness. Anyway, this chapter is a little shorter than the others and again, I'M SORRY! But I've been really busy with school and I haven't gotten around to updating this so here you go. Hope it's okay!**

It was noon by the time Helga realized that she had been up all night. And the only reason she happened to take in this detail was because of her noisy little alarm clock that rang from the nightstand. After her failed attempt at sleep, Helga closed her blinds and she tapped away at her old desktop computer for the rest of the night, stopping only once or twice to get up and use the restroom. With a few final clacks, she stared groggily at the blaring computer screen with a small hint of pride. She finished another chapter of her novel. _It only took about five months_, she thought to herself with a snort. Feeling just the slightest bit more confident, Helga clicked the monitor on her computer and sighed a sigh reserved for those who had overcome a great feat. Maybe now she could sleep without disturbance.

Not bothering to shut off her light, she fell face first onto the bed and was out cold in minutes. She dreamt about absolutely nothing.

Just a few hours later, Helga rolled herself around and finally mustered up the energy to drag her feet towards the bathroom. She had to go food shopping sometime today, seeing as how she ate the last of her supply yesterday afternoon. The check she got from The Hilwood Review was burning a hole in her purse and ultimately her stomach.

Although she looked rather okay, Helga's eyes burned fiercely when she stared into the mirror, seeing tiny black dots moving about the space like ants. She tried hard to keep her thoughts off of Arnold last night when she worked, but now that she was fully conscious and not preoccupied, her head throbbed at the thought. Maybe she would pay a visit to Phoebe later that day so she didn't have to deal with it alone.

But first, things needed to happen with her hair, face and general bodily hygiene. Helga hadn't showered in days, and looking over at the white curtain, she really didn't feel like it. Shrugging, she lifted her arms to gather her hair into a bun when something strange caught her eye.

"What the fuck…?" she said aloud, gripping at the skin of her arm. Bug bites. They were tiny but there were a lot of them, scaling up and down her arm like a connect-the-dot puzzle. Frantically, she scratched at them, hoping that maybe it was just some sort of bleary, just-got-out-of-bed delusion.

* * *

Arnold returned home, his mind buzzing with this newfound discovery. He fumbled cautiously for his keys, not sure whether or not he was ready to face the wrath of Clarissa. He hadn't exactly been keen on going "home" lately, which ultimately lead to him delaying every little meeting, conversation, and last-minute paper to avoid being there early.

So when he stepped through the front door that night, Arnold fully expected an onslaught of curse words, loaded questions and scowls. But as he slowly shut the door behind him, none of those things came. He even ventured into the kitchen with a keen sense of paranoia on his back.

She wasn't there, either. Goose pimples rising on his arms, he even gambled to call out, "Hello?" But nothing came in response. Her car was in the driveway; she couldn't have gone that far.

But suddenly, the sound of muffled footsteps came from the living room. Clarissa was still in her pajamas even though it was late into the evening (or maybe she just changed into them early?) and she had an empty bowl of what seemed to be cereal in her hands. Her eyes were red.

"Hey," said Arnold, carefully poking the angered bear. "How was your day?"

"It was fine," she replied in a snuffed tone. He couldn't help but soften his rigidity when he realized that she wasn't going to yell at him. On the contrary, she seemed demure and genuinely sad, a side he had never seen of her. He felt bold, so he placed a hand on her shoulder gently.

"Don't," she told him, turning around to face him. She crossed her arms in front of her chest for protection. "Not now."

And for the first time in what seemed like forever, Arnold really took a moment to stare at her. The girl that he fell in love with his sophomore year of college had changed from a charming intellectual to a grumpy, withered shell. And even though it was impossible, he couldn't help but feel like it was his entire fault.

"Are you okay?" he asked, scratching the back of his head. Her lips curled into a tight line before she let out an exaggerated sigh.

"No," she told him while leaning backwards on the marble counter. "You've been avoiding me."

"I…" he began, ready to refute her statement. But he didn't want to argue anymore. Not tonight. "I know. I've just been dealing with some stuff."

"Well, you know you can talk to me," she told him through clenched teeth, as if even she knew that was a lie. He could barely get a word in edgewise when he returned home because of all the yelling, and even if he did spill about Helga, she would probably think he was cheating. She added, "I guess."

"Yeah," he said with slight awkwardness. And just like that, she burst into tears. "What? What is it?"

"You don't love me anymore, do you?" she asked, her words interrupted by chokes.

"Of course I do!" Arnold protested without missing a beat, because he knew it was the truth. "Why would you say that?"

"Because you're never here," she stuttered as she wiped the tears fitfully. "You never want to work on our relationship."

_Maybe because I know it'll never change,_ he thought in his head. Giving her a sad sort of look, he could tell that she was thinking the same thing. Regardless, she continued to cry.

"I'm sorry," he told her honestly. "I really am. But… I just…I don't know."

"What?" she asked heatedly, blotting her eyes with her t-shirt sleeve. Little black mascara stains dotted her face. "Don't know what?"

"I don't know if things can change," he replied boldly, truthfully. She shook her head slightly.

"Y-you don't?" she asked. Mimicking her, he shook his head, looking down at the speckled tile below him. The look in her eyes was too much. "You don't want to… _work _on it?"

"It's not that," he told her, crossing his arms in front of his chest for protection, for he knew that the words threatening to come out would sting her. "I don't want to work on something that's never going to be different. It's not going to change."

"Is there another girl?" she asked immediately, her tone slowly turning into the one he was used to.

"No," he said with an edge to his voice. _Well, not really_, he thought. She sighed heavily, her hand lingering in front of her face as she bit furiously on a fingernail. Her face was shiny from crying.

"Well, then what should we do?" she asked shakily, more tears spilling out of her eyes. Arnold tried not to notice her fiddling with the engagement ring on her finger.

Arnold remained silent, because he saw it coming from miles away. He saw it when it was just a speck in the distance, threatening to become something huge if they didn't do anything about it. And even through her tears, even through the blatant unhappiness on her face, Arnold knew that she could see it, too. It was just harder for her to believe it.

"Are we…" he began; his voice was tight and unrecognizable. "Are we breaking up?"

He abruptly felt like a teenager again, forever caught in a complicated relationship. She looked up at him with watery eyes and a tight lip line. She said, "I don't know. Let's sleep on it?"

"No," he said truthfully, letting out a breath that he didn't know he was holding. "If you're answer is 'I don't know', then I don't think there's anything to sleep on." Her gaze faltered for a moment as she stared at him, her eyes finally dried.

"Oh," she said after a long few seconds of quiet. Practically whispering, she continued, "Yeah… I guess you're right."

And so they spent the rest of the night discussing their options from either side of the kitchen counter, awkwardly looking down at their feet and finally, retreating to their separate rooms. Arnold padded up the stairs and into the bedroom just a few hours before he was to wake up for work, while Clarissa called her mother, arranging to stay for the night, or as long as it took her to gather her belongings from the apartment.

As he lay alone in his bed later that night, he tossed around the sheets with the plague of her absence haunting him. He knew he made the right decision, though. Because truthfully, Arnold _did_ love Clarissa… but did he like her? Did he want to stay with her for the rest of his life? No, he didn't. And that notion seemed to come alive in her eyes when she looked at him earlier that night. She knew it was true, too. He wasn't completely innocent in the downfall of their relationship.

That night was the first sleepless night he had had since that summer after senior year.

* * *

"Bedbugs, Miriam. _There are bed bugs in this house!_" Helga screamed into the phone as she stood on her porch. A last-minute duffel bag of clothes was at her feet. Her unbearable neighbors, Shannon and Charles, jogged past her with their neon pink sweat bands and cheesy grins. They waved simultaneously and stopped for a split second, as if wanting to talk, but Helga turned an indifferent shoulder.

"Calm down, sweetie," her mother shushed into the phone.

"I can't be calm!" she replied. "There is a giant tent around my house. I can't even be in there without _dying_, or wearing a freakin' HAZMAT suit!"

"Well have you found a place to stay?" asked Miriam in the same bored tone as before. Helga never took offense to this, though. It was just the way her mother talked.

"I, well, uh… no," Helga responded awkwardly. The first person she called, of course, was Phoebe, who made up some strange excuse and then hung up abruptly. "That's kind of why I was calling."

"Ohhhh," said her mother languidly. "Do you want to come here, and sleep in your old room?"

"Yes, Miriam," replied Helga with an edge. "I would very much like that."

"Well, okay then," her mother replied. Helga remained silent for a few moments, waiting for her to say something else. Instead she just cleared her throat noisily.

"Is Olga going to be there?" asked her after a few moments.

"Yeah," she told her. "For the weekend, I think. Oh, good, it'll give you a chance to spend more time with Malcolm!"

Malcolm, as Helga saw it, was Olga's trophy husband. Actually, Olga was practically a trophy wife, too. They were a trophy couple; they were both attractive and charming and that was about it.

Malcolm had a head of slick, black hair with a square jaw and beady eyes that didn't show any sign of intelligent life. He was a dipshit. The one conversation topic he could actually discuss was men's cologne, and only because he worked at said counter in a local department store.

"Can't wait," murmured Helga. She hung up before her mother could say another word. With a heave, Helga hoisted her duffel bag of clothes over her shoulder and walked in the same direction that her good-for-nothing neighbors had gone. She could still see their neon pink sweatbands. They were really slow runners.

* * *

The second Helga stepped through the front door, she immediately wanted to turn around, hail a cab and go wherever it would take her. Why didn't she just check into a hotel, or something?

_Right, _she thought. _Because I have no money._

Olga kissed Helga's cheek upon her arrival. Her lips were sticky with lip gloss and it left a stain, which she wouldn't be able to fully rub off until she got in the shower later that night. And Malcolm reeked of smelly cologne that only old men wore, the kind that caused a shudder that you would get after taking a swill of hard liquor. His teeth were too large for his mouth and every time he smiled, Helga felt the urge to count them.

"So how's the house?" Miriam asked as she picked at some grapes.

"Other than the bugs?" Helga replied scathingly, as if it was all her mother's fault. Miriam didn't notice her tone, though. She stared intently at a grape that was misshapen. "It's fine."

"Oh-h-h-h, I want to see it! I haven't been there in ages!" said Olga, as if it was some sort of wonderland. Bob grunted from the other side of the kitchen. It was the only sound he would make all night.

"Yes, you should give us a tour sometime, Helga," said Malcolm with a strange wink. Helga faked a smile, but it felt more like a wince.

"Um, so I promised my friend Phoebe that I would see her tonight," Helga lied, after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "So I won't be home for dinner, or whatever."

"You still hang out with that sweet girl?" Miriam asked, slightly more engaged into the conversation. Helga shrugged, remembering high school when Phoebe was still "sweet", as her mother said. Now she was just… well, she was just different. Quieter.

"I've seen her a few times since I moved," she told her.

For the rest of the afternoon, conversation lulled by like a college lecture on the most boring subject. Helga could barely find anything to say to the people around her, and vice versa. By nightfall, Helga was already out the door, calling Phoebe's number on her cell.

"Hello?" came her soft voice.

"Hey, I need rescuing," replied Helga as she stood outside, kicking around some dried leaves.

"Rescuing? Are you alright?" asked Phoebe. Distant sounds of the television floated through the line.

"Just being forced to stay at my parent's house, that's all," she told her rather angrily. She knew that Phoebe had her own life, but _come on_, she knew how much Helga despised being at home. Phoebe cleared her throat.

"Oh," she said. For a moment, Helga thought she would bail on her. She was almost certain that Phoebe was about to make up some strange excuse and hang up like she did earlier. And then maybe Helga just wouldn't contact her again and Phoebe would be okay with that, so she too wouldn't call Helga. They would go back to the way everything was before Helga came here. And for some reason that made Helga very sad.

After a few seconds, Phoebe said, "Well, that does sound like a problem." Then she laughed that same laugh from before, like she wasn't used to it.

Helga couldn't help but smile a little. "Can you like… pick me up or something?"

"Sure. I'll be there in a few minutes."

**A/N: Sorry it was kind of random. Let me know what you think!**


	9. Plans

**A/N: Hello all. Thanks so much for your positive feedback. I guess I just get nervous when I think that people won't enjoy my work and then I feel the need to basically "calm me down". Anyway, I'm much more proud of this chapter, and am excited to keep writing these next few ones because I believe they're going to be a bit more exciting. I do still want your guys' input, though. I know the direction in which I want to go in and all, but if you readers have any suggestions, comments or questions, don't be afraid to ask. I know it's still a rather confusing concept but it'll get easier, I promise. Thanks again.**

Phoebe's house was like something one would see on a movie set. It was perfect; two clean coffee mugs sat waiting for morning to come on the kitchen counter, the floor had no scuffmarks or ratty rugs. Every little paper, little detail, was tucked away into a cabinet somewhere, organized by importance and color. The sink was devoid of dirty dishes, and the TV guide was even sitting on the coffee table at a strange angle; it was that sort of angle that was placed there meticulously, not thrown down by the person who last read it.

And it seemed like nobody lived there at all. Helga stood in awe.

"Nice place," she finally said, shrugging off her coat. Phoebe gave her a blank look.

"Thank you," she murmured. "I think Gerald should be getting home soon… just so you know."

Helga had completely forgotten that Phoebe was married. She shrugged her shoulders and scoured the room for a place to sit, but she would feel intrusive if she even touched the brown leather couch. She wondered if anyone ever sat there.

"So, Arnold came over last night," Phoebe told her. "I think you might be driving him insane."

Helga let out a gasp of laughter, looking at her friend incredulously. "What? Why?"

Phoebe giggled a little bit too, covering up her mouth with her sweater. "He came in here asking about you again. We talked about… well, you know, the incident. Well, I guess you don't really know."

"No," she told her, "I… I'm pretty sure I remember now."

Phoebe looked at her for a long moment, her bespectacled eyes unwavering. Helga became uncomfortable. She stared down at her off-white shoes and wondered if Phoebe was offended over the fact that they were touching her clean carpet.

"I guess moving back here was kind of more than you bargained for, huh?" asked Phoebe. Helga nodded absentmindedly, still staring down at the ground.

"I guess so." Her eyes darted from side to side. "Mind if I use the can – er, bathroom?"

"Go ahead, I was just about to grab some tea. I'll get you a cup."

Helga wrinkled her nose. Tea? Who drinks tea at seven o'clock at night? Shaking her head, she yanked open a door that she presumed would lead to the bathroom. Instead, it was a small, dingy closet that looked almost as if it didn't belong in Phoebe's organized home.

There were parts to some home project spewed all over the floor in a mess of bolts, railings and some sort of fabric. After a few moments of examining it, she determined what it was.

Even though she hadn't eaten anything all day, Helga felt a splash of bile burn the back of her throat. It was just a gut reaction. Like when you hear about a plane crash, or a shooting. Helga didn't normally pay attention to those things. Sure, they were sad, and sure she felt bad about it, but here she was standing in front her old best friend's closet where an unassembled baby crib was thrown carelessly on the floor like hand-me-down clothing. She shut the door. Carefully opening the next one, she felt relief to find it to be the correct destination.

After using the restroom and washing her hands, Helga stared into the mirror for a while and decided that she really didn't know anything. About her friends, about her family. Anything about potential babies that her old best friend would be carrying right now, sharing smiles with her husband who Helga forgot even existed.

Phoebe was sitting in the living room when Helga returned. That look she always had on her face suddenly made sense. "Here, I didn't put any sugar in it. Hope that's okay."

"Actually, Pheebs," said Helga out of habit. "I mean, Phoebe. I should probably go. I just remembered that I, um, have to wake up early."

"Oh," said Phoebe. She looked for a moment as if she was going ask what Helga could possibly be doing tomorrow morning, but she clearly stopped herself. "Do you need a ride?"

"I can walk," Helga murmured. "Sorry for just dropping in like that."

"No," Phoebe said with a sideways smile. "It's okay, I don't mind. Gets kind of lonely here when Gerald is at work for most of the day."

A solid pit formed in Helga's stomach and felt rather foolish for making excuses. But she didn't know how to handle it. "Okay, well, I'll see you."

She gave a small wave before heading for the door. She didn't hear Phoebe respond. She was almost positive that she didn't. Nevertheless, she continued out the door and back in the direction towards her house, hoping that she could just sneak up to her old room and be back to solitude in her own house by tomorrow.

But of course, no such luck. She returned to the house after half an hour of walking to find her whole family downstairs in the same spot she left them in. Olga was in the middle of some extravagant story; her arms were outstretched as she talked with too much enthusiasm and pep. Her parents looked positively bored, while Malcolm was nodding like a bobble head and staring up at Olga like she was some sort of interesting sculpture.

"So _then_, he said 'Cushion? I thought you said _Russian!_'- Oh, Helga, your back!" exclaimed Olga, who had stood from her chair with a burst of energy. Helga merely grunted in response as she headed for the stairs.

"Well, aren't you going to sit with us?" asked Miriam slowly from the head of the table, still laughing at Olga's horrendous excuse for a joke. Her right had clasped a sweating glass of gin, or bourbon or something brown. "It's only eight, are you already going to bed?"

Helga sighed very pointedly, but she just didn't want to make a scene tonight. Begrudgingly, she slid her feet towards her kitchen table and plopped down on the chair, ready for a night of full of her family's antics.

* * *

Arnold was having trouble sleeping.

Not just since the night that he and Clarissa had parted ways, but almost every night afterwards. The absence of her body next to his at night was ghost-like; it haunted his very room and threatened to make sure he never slept again.

It wasn't even really that he missed her. It was her body that he wished could remain. There was something comforting about knowing that someone was right next to him, in his most vulnerable state of sleep. And now there was no one. And he felt alone.

It was Friday when he finally decided that he needed to get out of the house, and go somewhere that wasn't his office. Or see someone that wasn't his secretary. Or anything that required some sort of social interaction. Fitfully, he picked up the house phone, his fingers hovering over the number that he knew so well.

It would be so easy to call Clarissa. He could tell her about everything that's been going on; everything with Helga, everything between Phoebe and Gerald. He could probably talk for hours about all the things he had been thinking about since she left. And then maybe they could be friends, and he could call her when he had other problems.

But he stopped himself because he knew it wouldn't work out that way. Just because he craved company didn't mean that he craved _her _company, and dialing her number would be a mistake. Hurriedly, he dialed Gerald's number instead, hoping that he wasn't busy.

"Hello?" said Gerald, perhaps a bit louder than he intended. His voice was coated with thick saliva. He cleared his throat again. "Hrm, Arnold?"

"Hey man," he replied, trying not to sound desperate for human interaction. "Long time no talk?"

That phrase came out much stranger than he intended. He smiled sheepishly even though Gerald couldn't see him.

"Yeah, sorry," said Gerald truthfully. It took a while before he continued, "I've been kind of, um… busy."

"Busy?" Arnold asked. He didn't realize that he was gripping the phone too tightly. Changing from one hand to the other, he waited for Gerald's response.

"Yeah," his friend muttered vaguely.

"Well, are you busy tonight?" Arnold felt nervous for some reason. Like suddenly he and Gerald weren't friend's anymore, and this was some sort of awkward acquaintance conversation. Had it really been that long since they talked? Or was Arnold just so devoid of human interaction that his words were just clumsy and uncoordinated? Regardless, he continued, "I haven't seen you in a while."

"Yeah… sorry man," Gerald mumbled regretfully. "Why, what's up?"

"Clarissa moved out," Arnold blurted. He couldn't believe that he hadn't told Gerald that yet. He heard muttering on the other side of the line.

"Woah, you okay? What happened?" he asked. Arnold explained the situation very briefly, while Gerald 'mhmm'ed and 'ahh'ed at the right moments.

"I just haven't been able to talk to anyone in a few days. And this Helga situation is still driving me nuts." Arnold sighed heavily. "I should probably forget about it. It's just stupid high school drama."

"Or you could just call her," said Gerald. "Helga, I mean."

"Do you really think that's a good idea?" said Arnold, feeling like a teenage girl, debating whom he should ask to the school dance.

"Why not?"

Gerald was never one to put up with bullshit. If something was wrong, he was always the one to speak first and Arnold had no idea how he did it. So obviously this situation had an easy solution for Gerald.

"Listen," he continued. "If you want to get to the bottom of it, get to the bottom of it. Otherwise you're always going to wonder."

"Yeah," Arnold said. He remembered a day when he was the one in this position, dishing out all the advice… and now it seemed as though he had none to give, even to himself. It all made so much sense but he wished it didn't.

"Anyway, I should go," Gerald told him. "Sorry… it's just that Phoebe and I have, well, we have _plans_."

"Plans?" asked Arnold. But then he stopped, and feeling embarrassed again, he grinned awkwardly. "Oh, right."

"Heh," Gerald laughed nervously. "Right. I'll see you later. Stop by tomorrow and we can catch the game."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks Gerald," he replied, before hanging up.

* * *

Helga had never been happier to be back in her grandfather's house. She was busy clacking away at her computer when her cell phone lit up, rudely blaring an unknown number in the corner of her eye.

_Huh, _she thought. Weird. It was probably just someone calling the wrong number, and she was much too busy with her sudden spark of creativity to interrupt her writing with a ten-second, mistaken call. She let it go to voicemail so when the recipient heard "This is Helga Patacki, please leave a message," that they knew they didn't mean to dial her at all.

She continued to type, delving into a rather intense dialogue between the two main characters, one of whom had just recently found out about the other's life-threatening disease, which that character had kept a secret for almost three years, and –

_Bzzzzzzzz. _Helga smacked her fist down on her desk in frustration. She honestly had no idea why she kept her cell phone so close to her when she was in an intense writing mood. With an eye roll, she checked her phone this time to see she had a voicemail.

"Wonderful," she thought. Punching in the number, she held the phone between her ear and shoulder as she reread what she had just written.

"_You have one new voice message_," said the voice. After a pause, the voice on the other side began speaking. "Hey, Helga… um, this is Arnold."

Immediately she straightened her position, holding the phone tightly with her hand as she listened. "Well, I'm just calling because… well, I don't really know why I'm calling. I'm not even sure why I'm leaving a voicemail."

There was a long pause. She thought for a second that he was just going to leave it at that, hang up, and expect her to do something about it. But that wasn't the case. "Listen, I'm not really sure what your problem is, but you really confused me when you came into my office. And I just wanted to clear things up, so we can both move on, or whatever, with our lives. So… yeah… Call me back. I guess. Okay, bye."

Helga clicked the red button and placed her phone back on the desk, completely unsure of what she would possibly do about this situation. What did he need to talk about, or "clear up"? For a while longer she sat with her chin resting in her hand, debating with herself on whether or not any of this was worth it.

Was it worth it, just to speak of all the mistakes that plagued their past? To "clear up" what already seemed so clear to Helga? She had nothing to say to him. He made everything perfectly "clear" that day at Rhonda's house, and if he had some sort of epiphany about it all, wouldn't he have told her already?

Triumphantly, she picked up her phone. And she chucked it across the room so that it landed with a _wump _on her bed.

_It's all just high school drama_, she told herself as she stared back up at the monitor. _I don't care anymore_.

Yet she couldn't help but feel like someone had socked her in the gut as she continued with her dialogue. Her fingers waggled over the keyboard unsteadily, and every other word was misspelled. Maybe it was time for sleep.

**A/N: Let me know what you think!**


	10. Special

**A/N: Okay, so… this chapter was really hard to write. A lot goes on and a lot of time passes and I always find it hard to do that in a fic, especially when the other chapters are slower paced. Anyway, I hope it makes sense. Also, there's a part towards the end that I kind of took from a one-shot I wrote and published on this website in a drabble/one-shot compilation piece called "Everything to Nothing". So, just a heads up. Thanks for waiting, guys.**

A month passed.

The rare times that Helga left her house were only for certain situations: to get the mail or to get food. All other hours of the day were spent in her computer chair, typing away at the final chapters of her story, a runner who spots the finish line.

Everyone once in a while, her phone would light up from the other side of the room, buzzing with urgency. She almost always ignored it. She hoped the other person on the line was Arnold and she hoped that his chest would heave with dejection every time he got her voicemail.

It was early evening when Helga stopped. Just as she was reaching that breaking point, the point where everything was resolved in one single sentence, she stopped herself. Her fingers frozen over the keyboard, she simply stared with dull eyes into the computer, wondering for a second if maybe she had gone completely crazy. The last sentence of her novel… and not a word was coming to mind.

For a few moments, she blinked at her computer, knowing that something would come to her. Maybe if she went to the bathroom quickly; she had to pee for the past hour but couldn't bear to leave her chair without some sort of feeling of accomplishment. So she stood on a pair of wobbly legs and hobbled into the bathroom.

Helga suddenly felt pretty stupid. Brilliance takes time. Maybe she just needed to sleep on it.

And yet… as she stared at her computer with bewilderment, her head pounded fiercely. "Any minute now," she sighed to herself.

After about an hour of wondering, she sauntered over to her porthole-sized window and stared, hoping to get rid of her tip-of-the-tongue predicament.

A woman outside pulled down at the bottom of her too-short skirt as she hailed a cab. Her stupid neighbors walked to get their mail, grinning like they knew nothing else. A man clad in just a bathrobe inspected the newspaper carefully from his front yard.

Again, Helga sighed. Why was everything in the outside world so _uninspiring_?

Carefully, she shut the blinds and stuffed her feet into a spare pair of shoes on the floor. Maybe the world was brighter in a different location. She decided to take a walk for the first time since she moved in; maybe some fresh air would jog some ideas.

It was warm outside, warmer than she remembered it being this early in the springtime. Rolling up her jacket sleeves, she wandered along the sidewalk without purpose. Several cars zoomed past her, causing a rush of pleasant wind to envelop her as a familiar sight came into view.

Gerald field. Only, unlike the last time she had stopped by, there was someone there. Well, two people. One of them happened to be familiar to her.

"Good, now throw the ball back!" _Thunk. _"Ow…no, I'm okay, daddy's okay!"

It was Eugene. Taken slightly aback, Helga tried to turn around but he caught her before she could. With a red bump forming rather quickly on his forehead, he grinned sheepishly at her before it clicked in his mind who she was.

"Helga? Oh, wow, it's _you_!" he exclaimed. The small boy behind him, probably about three or four, looked at her with naïve curiosity as he swiveled a softball in his tiny hands. "I had no idea you still lived here, how are you?"

He took a step forward to her, and for a moment Helga was fearful that he would hug or something equally horrifying. Instead, he just shoved his hands into his pockets and waited for a response.

"Yeah, I moved back a little while ago," she said with no inflection, staring at him incredulously. He wasn't much different from what she could recall from high school… same hairdo (slicked back with heavy duty hair gel), khaki-and-sandal ensemble, and large, straight teeth with a hint of yellow. But his eyes were bright and from the way he stood, Helga could just tell he was content. And… he had a son?

"Wow!" he exclaimed, as if her flat statement was the most colorful of stories. Helga was going to say something else, but she was just so dumbfounded that she had run into yet another schoolyard friend. Had they all just stayed here, doomed to live life in this city forever? _At least I got away_, she thought. Well, sort of. "Any specific reason you came back?"

"Inheritance," Helga snorted, attempting at a joke. When Eugene's eyes didn't have a flicker of understanding, she coughed and said, "Uh, my grandpa kicked it so he gave me his house."

"Well, that's horrible!" said Eugene. Helga shrugged. "Have you seen anyone else since you came back? Any old classmates?"

"No," she lied, hoping to bore him out of conversation. She could feel her creative juices dwindling and dwindling with each passing second.

"Oh, I always see some of our old high school classmates around here. Did you know Sid owns that record store a few blocks down? Oh, and Harold is over at Green Meats! Isn't that just too funny?"

_Hilarious, _thought Helga. "And Arnold is the editor at…" Suddenly, Eugene gave a rather awkward cough, as if he just realized whom he was talking to. "Well, a creative writing magazine of some sorts."

The situation probably wouldn't have been strange at all if Eugene wasn't staring solemnly at his feet, clearly upset over his misstep.

"Well anyway, we should get going," he said, pulling gently at his son's arm. The kid scowled and stuck his tongue out at her. Eugene, mortified by his son's actions, quickly hurried away from the park. With a nervous laugh, he called, "It was nice seeing you, Helga. Maybe I'll see you around again!"

She simply nodded as he made his way past her, whispering something to his son about being nice to strangers. Aggravated, she stood in that spot for a few moments longer, staring at the field that she used to practically own. The grass had been green and freshly mowed, and the handmade the scoreboard hung from the brick wall with pride. Now, weeds were sprouting in every which way, engulfing the place, making sure the walls saw no daylight. If she squinted, she could still see the scoreboard behind a great morass of decaying greenery. But she stopped herself from taking a closer look. She was nauseous.

Helga felt very small. Here, in the place she used to call home… in the place where she was once free, once happy. Here, in Hilwood, she was still known for that summer. She was just baggage; Arnold's baggage, actually, which made it worse.

Everything was different yet Helga remained the same. She was still that girl who confessed her love and got beaten down, while Eugene got hit in the head with a baseball thrown by his own son… and while Phoebe shoved the remains of her angst and loss into a tiny closet, never to be looked at again. While her father refused to acknowledge her existence.

And there was Arnold. He was probably seeing someone by now, completely happy, aside from his one stray piece of baggage from high school. Maybe the only reason he contacted her was to clear his conscience once and for all. She could practically picture him telling his beautiful girlfriend or wife-to-be about Helga, the ugly hag who returned to Hilwood just to spite him.

She took another look at Gerald Field. Dry dirt covered the ground where they used to play. All things but the bugs wriggling in the earth, crawling over first base, were dead. Helga turned around and walked home.

* * *

"I think I might just give up," said Arnold as he sat on Gerald's couch one stormy afternoon. Gerald pursed his lips and gave him a strange look. "What? I haven't talked to her three months! She won't answer my calls. I don't want to become a stalker or something."

"I know, I know," said Gerald calmly. "Maybe she's just… you know, done. Maybe she doesn't want to clear things up."

"Why wouldn't she?" asked Arnold, startled by the volume of his own voice.

"I don't know, man. Some people just don't want to face the facts," he said, biting on a pesky hang nail. Arnold sighed noisily, confused about what Gerald was saying. His answers weren't usually this cryptic.

"I just don't know what I'll do if I never speak to her again," Arnold muttered quietly. When Gerald's eyes widened, he added, "You know, because I want to clear things up. Apologize, or something."

"Whatever you say," Gerald cajoled with a raised eyebrow. Arnold had stopped by earlier that afternoon to drop off a book he borrowed, but like most other visits, he ended up staying a while and talking with Gerald. Today, however, he seemed kind of distracted, and Arnold had just now noticed that Phoebe was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Phoebe?" asked Arnold, watching as Gerald visibly tensed. It took a while for a response to come.

"Uh, she's out," he told him, scratching at his stubbly chin. "Running errands."

"Oh. Things getting better?" he asked, hoping to pry something out of his friend. Gerald pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, unsure of how to answer this question.

"Yes and no," he said, again leaving Arnold with a puzzle of an answer. He rolled his eyes.

"I'm not dumb, Gerald," Arnold reminded his friend. Gerald was almost always calm, and when he wasn't, it was easy to pick out a lie from the truth. "Where is she really?"

"She's…" Gerald began, twiddling his thumbs nervously. "At the doctor."

"Oh," was all Arnold could think to say. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, it's just a check-up. You know, to see how things are… _progressing_," Gerald said with a frown, staring down at the blinding white carpet. Arnold shook his head.

"I don't get it."

"Never mind," Gerald said. "Don't worry about it."

Almost as if on cue, the faint sound of a key being pushed into the lock halted their conversation. Arnold suddenly felt like somewhat of a burden, sitting there with nowhere else to go, no one else to talk to. Phoebe and Gerald had their own lives, and he couldn't help but feel like he was always interfering.

His thoughts were interrupted by soft sniffling, which almost immediately turned into a total downpour. Phoebe had entered the room crying and was now completely sobbing when she saw Gerald. Arnold wasn't used to seeing her like this, and as much as he wanted to be there for her, for the both of them… he felt the need to sneak out while her eyes were still too muddled with tears to notice him go. But as he lifted off the seat, Gerald grasped his arm, silently telling him to stay.

"What, what is it?" he asked very quietly, reaching out for his wife and grabbing her small waist with his hands, bringing her close. Instead of speaking, she just cried more, letting slick tears fall down her porcelain face without hesitation. Gerald repeated, "What is it? Are you okay?"

"I…" she warbled. "I'm fine."

"You're fine?" asked Gerald, still holding onto her waist with his shaking hands. "You mean you're…"

"Yeah," she squeaked, snuffling endlessly. She wiped tears away with her sweater sleeve to make way for new ones. This was seemingly the first moment that Phoebe realized Arnold was there.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, flinging her hand to her mouth as if she had spewed a dozen cuss words. Fitfully wiping away the tears, she attempted to smile at Arnold but looked more embarrassed than anything. Arnold couldn't help but grin widely at her, already glowing from the news. "I'm sorry, Arnold, I didn't notice you. Oh, and look at me, just so embarrassing, I'm sorry, I'm just-"

"Say no more," said Arnold.

Gerald, not even paying attention to this exchange, pulled her closer, resting his head upon her stomach as his arms found their way behind her back. Arnold could have swore that he saw a tiny glisten seep out of Gerald's closed eyes.

"I love you so much," he mouthed softly, only loud enough for him and Phoebe to hear.

* * *

Arnold left soon after that, congratulating the two with big hugs before stepping out the door. He suddenly felt rejuvenated. He had hated watching his two best friends deteriorate before his eyes, especially Phoebe. He had never had as close of a friendship with her than he did with Gerald, but there was always a bond between them that he knew would never break. After everything that happened… Arnold didn't even have a word to say to them. They had been completely fooled, meant to believe that they were having a child when in reality, they had lost one. For weeks, it was apparent that nothing would be the same. Phoebe would never return to her alert self, and Gerald would never regain the confidence he had worked so hard on.

But now, things were good. No, they were great. Arnold was all smiles as he hopped into his car.

So he decided to do something bold.

Helga's house was just a few blocks away. The house with the black fence. He just had to do something about this situation, even if he made a fool out of himself. But he didn't care. Why would he care when the promise of new life surrounded him?

He didn't even pause before he rang the doorbell. This was the right thing to do.

"Coming!" called a voice. A few cluttered bangs and clinks sounded from behind the door, and then it opened. Helga looked disheveled, and upon seeing Arnold, frustrated.

"What?" she asked. Arnold opened his mouth to speak, to preach to her, asking how she could be so avoidant when life was so short anyway. You live and you make mistakes and you die and not one life is the same. He wanted to tell her so many things, about the happiness he endured just moments before, about the agony he suffered trying to get reach her. But he was done waiting.

Helga stared at him with anticipation, probably wondering why he stared at her blankly without saying a word. But then he looked behind her. Boxes scattered the living room. An open suitcase like a mouth, spitting shirts and socks was idle in the corner. He shook his head.

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"What are you doing?" he asked. His voice was a whole octave above where he would have liked it to be, but it couldn't be helped. "Are you… leaving?"

It hit him like a bowling ball striking down the pins. He was scattered on the floor, rolling in every which direction, completely dumbfounded. A dull ache flared in his chest.

"Yeah," she replied briefly, looking Arnold up and down with a small scowl. "It's probably for the best," she added softer, as if trying to convince herself. He opened his mouth to speak, even when he knew he didn't have the power to change her mind. Did he ever?

"I… listen, I know things are kind of weird, and I'm sorry, but,"

"Don't apologize, Arnold," she muttered, completely stoic. He missed the scowl. "It's not your fault. It never was."

"But… what do you mean?" he asked, suddenly desperate to keep her in the palm of his hand. She shrugged; her usual burning eyes were snuffed out. "How could you be moving away, you just got here, and the house is really nice, and,"

"I don't know why you're trying to keep me here," she stated. A blush covered his cheeks when he realized that he was indeed executing a feeble attempt to change her mind. But could he be blamed? She was, as Mr. Simmons used to say, "special".

"So what if I am?"

Helga laughed without humor, looking away from Arnold to stop herself from showing some sort of emotion. From the side of her mouth, she said, "It's funny, that's all."

Her voice shook like the tremor of an earthquake. She looked back at him, the corners of her eyes sagging with fatigue. And part of her wanted him to beg her not to go; she wanted to hear his stupid excuses. She wanted him to stand in the way of her own ridiculous whims. Because despite the fact that everyone else around her had changed, she hadn't, and part of her could still feel that high school love. That kind of attraction that pulled her to him like a magnet even when she so desperately wanted to run away. And for a while, she had forgotten. But now it was so clear in front of her, and she couldn't help but feel weak when he stared imploringly.

"I need to leave," she uttered truthfully.

"But you have so much going for you here-"

"Like what, Arnold?" she spat suddenly, her pent-up anger turning its ugly head at him. "Like my good-for-nothing dad who hasn't said a word to me since I was 18? Or how about Miriam, whose only incentive to get out of bed is a glass of gin?"

Arnold stayed silent, staring down at his feet.

"Or what about _you_," she bellowed, pointing a finger at his chest. "I don't know why you keep trying to contact me. Don't you have anything better to do than to remind me of the reason I left this place to begin with? I mean, sheesh, what the hell do I have to do around here to get everyone to just forget about that stupid incident?"

Arnold gulped, suddenly feeling sheepish as he stood in front of her door.

"Everyone here is still living in the past. You just keep trying to preach your Mother Theresa bullshit at me, trying to make everything _right_again, when really, that's never going to happen. And then there's everyone else in this goddamn city that never got out, and they never will, and to them I'm still that naïve girl from high school who got shot down at a pool party. And don't get me _started_on Phoebe -"

"Don't," he said through clenched teeth. "_Don__'__t_say anything about Phoebe."

Suddenly dumbfounded, Helga stopped in mid-sentence with her mouth still open, shocked from his sudden reaction. After a few moments, she finally said, "Whatever, Arnold. There's just no point anymore."

"How do you know that?" he asked, taking his stinging hands out of his pockets and folding them.

"I just know," Helga replied mistily. The sneer in her lip had completely vanished now, and her dull, empty eyes had returned to their place. For once, Arnold could see that she had lost all the fire that used to burn inside her constantly. By now it was just black smoke rising and dissipating, coming out in small bursts until finally, it was gone. And this made him feel very sad.

"But –"

"I'll see you around, Arnold."

She shut the door without another word.

**A/N: Like I said, this chapter was really hard to write. I hope it's not horrible because I wrote out of order and I just hope it flows correctly. Also, between Helga seeing Eugene and Arnold finding out that Phoebe is pregnant, a month or so has passed. I hope I made that kind of obvious but if I didn't, sorry! Let me know what you think!**

**Also, you guys should check out my new storyyyyy! It's called "When There's Nothing Left to Burn" and it's a Gerald/Phoebe centric fic. I don't think I've ever seen a Gerald/Phoebe multi-chapter fic in this website before, and they are one of my all-time favorite couples (besides Arnold and Helga, who are also in the story). So, anyway! Yeah. Go look for it. Sorry for the shameless advertising.**


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